Glenn here, being honest and up front I don’t own a Mazda as such, I’m actually the owner of an Abarth 124 Spider, which as you all know is basically a rebranded Mazda wearing a disguise of sorts.
Anyhoo I didn’t join the Mazda forums which any cunning or devious plans in mind, I’m actually reaching out to see if anyone can help me obtain a little piece of equipment.
My car is lowered on coil overs you see and as such the automatic headlight leveller gizmo thinks I now have a large suitcase in my boot.
I have tried the adjustable lever on the rear axle, and manual adjustment of the LED headlights to no avail. I now figure I could do with an OBD2 headlight level dongle but can’t find one online.
I know you may say do the paper clip method, but I don’t trust myself not to cock it up and set my car on fire.
Welcome to the community you appear to have conflated a few terminologies. OBD2 is a plug in f Diagnostic device to find out what is wrong with your engine. Headlight dongles are bits of plastic used to swap from halogen bulbs to LED bulbs. Paper clip method refers to engine diagnostics for cars pre OBD2 compliant. I would be surprised if there are no YouTube vids that could advise you how to adjust the headlights if you do not have an owners manual. Wishing you many smiles per mile
Oh the headlight levelling works via the ECU I believe. So for instance when you have any suspension work done the dealer can recalibrate the headlight height.
As my car is now covered the car thinks I have something in my trunk/boot so the auto headlight motors dip the lights.
I can assure you I have done a lot of research, including fitting an adjustable lever, and manual adjustment at the headlights themselves.
I need to get the after mentioned dongle for the IBD as it’s the safest method. I don’t want to short across the IBD pins incase I get it wrong and damaged something.
There isn’t one. As mentioned above the OBD2 reader is a thing.
You mention the adjustable leveling arm at the nearside rear, this is the same as the ND1 and when I lowered mine at that time there was no need to do anything else.
I don’t know what else may be different between the Fiat front end and the Mazda one that means the methods you have tried don’t work.
I am surprised that you can not adjust the headlights down enough with the manual adjusters on each lamp. The MX-5 lamps have a good range of adjustments on them.
Have you done the adjustments with the lamps on and against a ‘wall’ at say 8 feet?
Yeah I’ve attempted to adjust manually making marks on a board for position, turning the screw clockwise. They went up a little but there now feels like resistance, as if they are at the max height.
Also fitted an adjustable lever on the rear switch. When I move the switch up and down the light will go further down and the motors can be heard running both sides. Unfortunately the lights will go down, but appear at there maximum height for going up, hence need resetting.
Main dealer is an option, quoted £154 for what is essentially a 2 minute job lol
Okay, so basically it’s the same as doing the OBD wires setting, I have done that and it’s a little fiddly so I suppose a dongle to do it may have some value, once.
I think it only shorting two pins on OBD2 while power (acc) on and this initiating levelling , that what I had done to mine , terminal B/J I believe in the image attached,
