How to upgrade car lights to still be registered?

However, some car owners do not fully understand the regulations when upgrading their lights, are not accepted by the vehicle inspection agency, and are forced to repair them.

According to the Vietnam Register, the highlight of Circular 43/2023 is the re-regulation of motor vehicle modifications by introducing changes in technical items on cars that are no longer considered "modifications" as before. This means that when vehicle owners make technical changes or modifications, they do not have to prepare design documents but are still accepted by the register.

Currently, vehicles have their front lights changed and fog lights (also known as fog lights, underbody lights) installed. Although the lighting is "upgraded" and fog lights are installed, some vehicles are confirmed by the inspection center to meet the requirements, while others are "invited back" to fix or supplement related documents.

Mr. Do Manh Phu (Phu Cat commune, Quoc Oai, Hanoi) said that because he often had to travel on forest roads, he upgraded from halogen lights to "super bright" LED bi-xenon lights. When he registered for inspection, the inspection did not accept his request and asked him to fix it because the beam angle was too large, and the lights did not have any accompanying documents of origin.

Representatives of some inspection centers in Hanoi said that the common practice of "upgrading" car lights is to replace the front light cluster with a different type of light cluster than the car's design, replace the conventional light cluster with LED projector lights (also known as "upgrade projector lights") with high light intensity and wide glare angle, replace the lights with both blue and red light (evil eye lights); replace the light bulb with a much larger capacity than the old bulb.

For fog lights, it is common to install LED bi-xenon lights that operate similarly to low beam and high beam lights (headlights), install a strip of lights in the middle of the front of the car, lights with many different colors... Cases like the above will not be accepted when periodically inspecting the vehicle and will require repair.

According to Mr. Tran Quoc Hoan - Director of the 29-03V Registration Center, the new regulation allows car owners to change the front lights and install fog lights without any procedures. However, it must be accompanied by a stamp or certificate of conformity to prove the quality and origin.

For front lights, the inspection unit only accepts replacement light clusters that have been certified or declared to be in compliance with QCVN 35:2017/BGTVT - National technical regulation on optical characteristics of front lights of road motor vehicles, without having to process or change the structure of the vehicle to ensure installation.

''The conformity stamp is affixed to the lamp and accompanied by documents. When purchasing a lamp, the supplier is responsible for providing this document to the buyer. When replacing the lamp, the vehicle owner must keep this document to provide to the inspection center. If not, it will be considered a floating product, of unknown origin and the inspection center will not accept the lamp inspection results,'' Mr. Hoan further explained.

In a simpler case of replacing light bulbs, the new regulation allows replacing bulbs of a different type than the vehicle's design, but the capacity must be equivalent and the bulb can still be replaced without changing the structure of the light cluster.

The new regulation allows vehicle owners to install additional fog lights without any procedures, but the requirement is that they can only be installed separately, in quantity of only 2, with each light positioned below the front lights.

“Fog lights must be installed to ensure that the light beam does not shine upwards, but must be below the horizontal line (can be determined by estimation or light tester) to be approved by the inspection unit, confirming the suitability of the lights,” said Mr. Hoan.