I’ve got a 2015 Corolla LE, and every time I drive at night, cars keep flashing their high beams at me. This is not the fun kind of flashing—it’s like a high-beam ambush! It’s driving me crazy. Every time, I double-check to see if my high beams are on, but they’re not.
Here’s the thing: I’ve had this issue for years. I even took it to the dealer in 2017, a few months after I bought the car. I told them people flash their lights at me constantly. They checked the headlights and said they were aimed correctly. I asked them to lower the lights, but they said it wasn’t worth it because the whole front end would have to come off.
Fast forward to now—8 years of being blinded regularly while driving at night. Just last night, during a 2.5-hour trip, I got flashed SIX TIMES! My high beams were off, and everything else about my driving was normal.
Does anyone else deal with this? Should I try changing the bulbs? Could the lights be aimed wrong despite what the dealer said? I’m seriously considering selling the car over this. Help me out, please!
I’ve got a 2015 too. Adjusting your lights by pulling the car up to a wall isn’t super reliable. At about 25 feet, the light should be around knee height. Mine were way too high when I got the car in 2020. I adjusted them to knee height, and now I can see much better, plus no one flashes me anymore.
Also, if your headlight housing is hazy, it spreads the light and can make it worse. You can adjust them yourself using the screw on top of the headlight housing—no need to remove the bumper!
I’ve got the opposite problem. One of my headlights points too low, and I can’t seem to fix it. The dealership said I’d need a whole new headlight assembly for $900. So now I drive around with uneven headlights.
@Nye
Actually, this is pretty common. Most cars in North America have the right headlight aimed higher than the left. It’s so you can see signs better without blinding oncoming traffic.
I had a 2017 Corolla IM, and I got flashed all the time, mostly by big trucks. I couldn’t figure it out either—my lights weren’t even LEDs. Now I drive a GMC, and it’s way better. If someone flashes me now, I give them a taste of their own medicine with my high beams. Feels great!
Yeah, same here. I think the headlights are just really bright, and people think they’re high beams. If someone flashes me, I flash them back to show it’s not my high beams.
Toyota uses self-leveling headlights, but they’re calibrated too high. When you hit bumps, they bounce and blind other drivers. Toyota really messed up on this. Late-model Civics have the same issue—they’re crazy bright.
I’m guilty of flashing people sometimes, especially trucks and SUVs whose lights are at eye level for me. It’s blinding! But when they flash me back, and it’s even brighter than the sun, I realize those weren’t high beams… and then I feel bad.
