[V8] European lights: legal?

[rmwoodbury at roadrunner.com]

In a word, "No, they are not".  

Uninterrupted use will depend on a couple of things.  Here in Maine we have an annual safety inspection. The car must be taken to an service facility that is licensed by MDOT to perform the inspection and sticker the car for the next twelve months.  Over the years the inspection process has become much more rigorous and I have had one car fail for a minor pinion leak that passed the year before.

Headlights are a different issue.  The Maine standard is quite specific but requires measuring lumen output using a meter that mounts to the front of the headlights.  (I haven't read the manual for two or three years, so the process may have changed).  The meter device is very expensive and only the biggest dealers could possibly afford one because at 50 bucks an inspection or so, there is NO money in doing inspections if there is no "real" work turned over by the inspection process. I have never had any mechanic ever question my headlights, and the Maine State Police are much too busy to bother looking at headlights to see if they say "DOT" somewhere on the face. A normal inspection includes proving that both high and low beams work, there are no bulbs that are not working on the car, the emergency brake works as do the wipers.  If there is a broken fog light, then it either must be repaired or the second fog light removed. The rule is "if it was on the car at the factory and is on the car now, it must work."  That goes for brake lights that have multiple bulbs....the inspector gets to fix that and charge something for it.  Brake lines are inspected carefully and any through rust is examined.  The rear bumper on my truck was rusted through several years ago and I had to replace the bumper in order to pass inspection, for instance.

Now, Maine is a very rural state and except for the two most populous counties...the "North Boston" counties, York and Cumberland, the only real issue will be window tinting.  If the car obviously has tinted windows that were not tinted by the manufacturer, the car will fail.  The last Porsche 928 that I had was "NFL Football Brown", a color to match job done for the original owner who was Bernie Kosar.  The windows in that car were tinted although the tint was pretty light.  It was the best window tinting job that I have ever seen as it was almost indistinguishable from the original tinted glass except for the color which was really brown-ish.  I took it to the mechanic and he passed the car because it was sooooo close.  He told me that the Maine State Police run "sting" operations periodically and one of their undercover guys brought a fairly new Toyota pickup in to be inspected.  He said that the truck was perfect in every way except that the windows were tinted obviously beyond what was standard issue.  He said he automatically failed the truck, and the trooper revealed who he was after the fact.  The fines are remarkably steep, though.

Regarding European headlights I think the issue is less whether or not they are legal than whether they are actually necessary.  Certainly some of the headlights and fog lights that are standard equipment on some current vehicles are just plain dangerous.  The stupid worthless fog lights on Subarus come to mind:  they are not aimed, have no discernable beam pattern, and because the regular headlights are so worthless, most people run them all the time.  We have a LOT Of Subarus here in rural Maine.  Some of the Zenon headlights seem to be offensive, but that may be because of my six decade old eyes, too.  In rural areas where the threat of deer is very present at night, and where there is a lot of road distances where there is little traffic, running Euro lights is worth the investment and risk, if there is any.  The worst thing that can happen is that the car could fail inspection, requiring the reinstallation of the standard DOT headlgihts which although a PITA, isn't a deal killer IF the lighting is really needed.  

In more urban environments proper relay installation and increased bulb wattage output is more than sufficient.  It is mostly where you have no street lights for ten miles and now building or residential lighting within half a mile of the narrow two lane rough paved road that the European headlights' beam pattern and focus is of so much value.

Roger