New to me 3200GTA - Headlights

S

skyestuart

Member
Messages
182
Hi

Just got home after a long drive from South England. My new car is amazing... of course there are things that need improving and the first one is the headlights. Very poor compared to my Fiat Doblo Van! So I want to fit new bulbs. The owners manual says contact my Maserati specialist! From a search on this forum I believe the bulbs are H7. I want to replace them all so are the main and dip both H7 and fog lights?

After that fix I'll look at the sticky button issue :)

Regards

stu
 
Kincath

Kincath

Member
Messages
359
Welcome along to the 3200 mad house. I’m sure someone much more knowledgeable will be along shortly. Hope you enjoy the car.
 
77GR

77GR

Junior Member
Messages
76
The extract from the manual that Lozzer kindly showed is actually WRONG. The outer headlamps are actually single filament (dip) H1s and so are the (inner) "Additional Headlights". All are 55W. I'm not sure what the foglights are but I wouldn't believe the manual so I would remove them to find out.

The reasons they are so useless is that the outer dipped lights (projector type) are on all of the time, dip or main with the same dip pattern. Meantime the definition of main is simply adding in the inner (additional) headlights. Since the inner headlights appear to be quite narrow but admittedly long range that means that on main beam all you have is a dip pattern cut off below the horizon (outer lights) plus a spotlight in the middle (inner lights).

I did find that spending additional pennies on some high quality bulbs (especially for dip) did make a difference, I went for Osram Night Breakers (latest "laser" versions) and that helped, especially with the reflective markers on the left and right where they became much more prominent. Next time, I think I would really push the boat out and go for PIAA XTreme White plus which mad even more of a difference to my motorcycle.

The headlamps are a bit of a chore to change as you have to lift the front of the car up, remove both wheels and then the inner wing liners just to get to the headlamps. The fogs are probably easier as they can be accessed from the engine bay.
 
Lozzer

Lozzer

Member
Messages
2,283
77GR said:
The extract from the manual that Lozzer kindly showed is actually WRONG. The outer headlamps are actually single filament (dip) H1s and so are the (inner) "Additional Headlights". All are 55W. I'm not sure what the foglights are but I wouldn't believe the manual so I would remove them to find out.

The reasons they are so useless is that the outer dipped lights (projector type) are on all of the time, dip or main with the same dip pattern. Meantime the definition of main is simply adding in the inner (additional) headlights. Since the inner headlights appear to be quite narrow but admittedly long range that means that on main beam all you have is a dip pattern cut off below the horizon (outer lights) plus a spotlight in the middle (inner lights).

I did find that spending additional pennies on some high quality bulbs (especially for dip) did make a difference, I went for Osram Night Breakers (latest "laser" versions) and that helped, especially with the reflective markers on the left and right where they became much more prominent. Next time, I think I would really push the boat out and go for PIAA XTreme White plus which mad even more of a difference to my motorcycle.

The headlamps are a bit of a chore to change as you have to lift the front of the car up, remove both wheels and then the inner wing liners just to get to the headlamps. The fogs are probably easier as they can be accessed from the engine bay.
Click to expand...

Posted with the best intentions, Thanks for this info, who would have thought the manual was wrong eh? Can you give a link to the bulbs to help folk out?
 
S

skyestuart

Member
Messages
182
Thanks guys ! I've owned plenty Italian cars in the past so well used to the owners books being not much use. I'd read on an older post that all the front lights were H1 including the spotlights but the on-line ordering websites are all saying H5 ... I'll order H1's but will check the spotlight as its easy to do that.

:)
 
77GR

77GR

Junior Member
Messages
76
Absolutely Lozzer - I encountered the same error when I saw it in my manual. When my bulb went, I had H4s and H1s "in stock" but when I dismantled I found the H1s not the listed H4s.

You can have some fun driving your car up to a wall in the dark and turning your headlights from dip (with the expected cut off) to main with the same cut off plus the spotlights in the middle and you will them fully understand the stupidity of such an arrangement.

I got the Osrams off of EBay as it was cheaper, that was last year and that dealer hasn't got the H1s any more but what you are looking for is available from Amazon
https://www.amazon.co.uk/generation-brightness-headlamp-64150NL-HCB-passenger/dp/B07FXH9352
Or for the PIAAs which are much better but not necessarily better enough to justify the shocking increase in price
https://www.amazon.co.uk/PIAA-11655-Xtreme-Performance-Halogen/dp/B00067BV6Y
 
Rex B

Rex B

Member
Messages
657
I fitted Philips H1Plus 130% , a big improvement over standard bulbs and have proved long lasting.

Rex B
 
CT3200GT

CT3200GT

Junior Member
Messages
94
skyestuart said:
Hi

Just got home after a long drive from South England. My new car is amazing... of course there are things that need improving and the first one is the headlights. Very poor compared to my Fiat Doblo Van! So I want to fit new bulbs. The owners manual says contact my Maserati specialist! From a search on this forum I believe the bulbs are H7. I want to replace them all so are the main and dip both H7 and fog lights?

After that fix I'll look at the sticky button issue :)

Regards

stu
Click to expand...
Welcome to the 3200 ownership, great cars!
 
CatmanV2

CatmanV2

Member
Messages
48,734
Wanderer said:
Italians! My Alfa 166 had the worst headlights ever, I honestly used to think they were off when driving on motorway or decent A-road, really bad....
Click to expand...

155s on the other hand. I swear I got sunburn once from those

C
 
Tamariini

Tamariini

Junior Member
Messages
102
Wanderer said:
Italians! My Alfa 166 had the worst headlights ever, I honestly used to think they were off when driving on motorway or decent A-road, really bad....
Click to expand...

166 headlights have really strong tendency to "burn" their reflectors on their halogen form. On older cars lights are usually rubbish because of that. 166 lights are actually good when new or replaced with new bits. Just did replacement of reflectors on mine.
 
davy83

davy83

Member
Messages
2,821
I also fitted Phillips H1 bulbs to my car and it does help without messing up the bulb warning system.
 
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