Headlight Switch problems of the 2015 Nissan Altima

When your turn signal lights are brighter than your low beam headlights you know you have a Nissan Altima. Low beam headlights are extremely dim. Have replaced bulbs with maximum brightness twice. Poly-carbonate housing is still relatively clear, no change in condition. Driving at night is harrowing. On highway, when cars are behind, their headlights create a shadow that the Altima beams cannot overcome. On city streets or county roads if there are no street lights the low beams project about 20 feet. High beams ok until encounter on-coming traffic and must switch to low beams. At that point you are totally in the black due to the Altima weak beams and the on-coming headlights. The best you can do is hope that a white line is painted on the edge of the roadway and try to stay in the lane. Fog conditions at night are horrible with weak low beam lights. Visibility is about 3 feet. Turning high beams on makes it equally bad. I can try to take some comparison pictures if NHTSA thinks it will help clarify this well documented issue with the Nissan Altima. Research indicates that reflector used in lighting housing goes bad and very little light is actually projected, no matter what bulb is installed. My vehicle is almost unusable at night and definitely in rain or fog. Absolutely will not let my teen drive the Altima at night. This is a dangerous safety issue that needs usg support. Nissan refuses to take any responsibility - refuting claims by owners and stating over $1000 to fix the issue. Nissan will not recall without usg intervention and we need NHTSA's help!.

The low beam headlights are entirely inadequate to provide sufficient light intensity and fail to safely illuminate the street ahead of you. This creates a very dangerous situation when driving at night, while raining, or under any low visibility conditions since you are not able to see objects. This issue was not present when I purchased the vehicle new, but became a serious safety hazard around 50,000 miles. Unfortunately, I have to drive with the high beams at night to be able to safely see. Sometimes, when I switch to low for an oncoming vehicle, I suddenly find myself driving completely without sufficient light.

I recently switched from an Audi a6, which uses hid bulbs to a 2015 Nissan Altima 2. 5 l. This model uses halogen bulbs, as I have discovered. I was driving at night during the first week of owning the Nissan and had poor visibility of the road. I was driving slowly toward a stoplight and could not see the small strip of median to my left as I was coming to the stoplight. I hit it, and the sidewall in the passenger-side tire blew out. I later looked up the vehicle safety report on this model and I see that it received a "poor" under the "headlights" section of the iihs website. . Read more...