Headlight Alignment
Last updated 31-Jan-2022
Tesla owners often complain about being flashed because their headlights blinding or dazzling oncoming traffic. The issue is often due to the position of your car when the headlights were aligned, something which occurs after every software update, and the need to do the alignment on a level surface.
The problem does not seem to occur in America as self leveling headlights don't appear to be a thing, but in Europe and other markets the cars will adjust, a major alignment after a sogftware update, and a more minor adjustment every time you get in the car.
Autoleveling is designed to have the headlights pointing perfectly down the road. Whenever you come to drive the car, the system also detects the load in the car to make a more minor adjustment, for instance the boot/trunk is full of heavy equipment. By adjusting the headlights, the perfect beam should still result regardless of the cars load.
Problems occur however when the car is not parked on a level surface. The leveling system uses sensors on the rear axle to detect if the car is level. In theory this is great, but if the cause for the car not being level is the surface it's parked on and not because of the weight distribution of the contents of the car, the levelling process will get it wrong, hence the problem if you park on an incline.
What you need to do
If you suspect your alignment is out, especially after service visit or a software update, stop on a level surface and run the headlight alighnment from the service menu. This will give you a semi perment correction of out of alignment headlights.
If in general your headlights are ok but after parking on a noticeable slope you feel your headlights are out of alignment then this is likely to be a temporary issue. Depending on the circumstance either complete the journey, or at your earliest convenience stop the car on a level surface and simply stop the dar, put it in park, get out of the car, close the door and then open it and get back in. You're simply fooling the car into doing a drive time smaller alignment.
Between these two tips/actions you should be able to recognise what causes the problem and be able stop your car from dazzling oncoming drivers.
