I believe the US headlights are missing the Active High-beam technology. The US headlights only come with Auto highbeams. The taillights, i believe, are only colored different, which should be an easy change.

 

Good afternoon all! Two quick questions I hope you experts can help me with. The first, does anyone have the headlight's technical data that you can share with me? Second, does anyone know if the taillight LED lights can be changed when out (hypothetically) or will we need a complete new taillight assembly?

Full disclosure - I recently retired from the military and decided to stay in Germany so I tried to see what it would take to register my US spec XC90 in Germany. It was mostly in the name of science since I now have a lot of time on my hands until I get a job with the US Government. The vehicle inspection technician only highlighted two items… the headlights and taillights. No big shock there. However, he was unsure with the headlights and asked me to get technical data from Volvo because they looked identical to the Euro version XC90s except for the clear side corners. He said if the specs were the same, they would be ok. The taillights assembly (outside) are indeed the same as with the Euro spec except for the yellow LED color which made me wonder if there is an easy way to change to the LEDs.

Thank you and keep up this great forum!

Probably best to reach out to Volvo directly. Or work with a local dealer.

 

Jillanez, please let us know what you find out. Would be very interested in hearing what you find out about the tail lights - how much work is involved, where to get parts and what the cost is.

Thanks!

 

Out of curiosity is the active highbeam assist that is available in Europe an actual hardware difference, or is it a software difference. I know that BMW owners can activate their active high beam system to make it fully functional with a few lines of code. Is there any chance that US volvo could gain this functionality through a software upgrade if NHISTA approves the use of an active high beam headlight system?

 

You're going to need to swap the entire taillight assembly, just need to buy the euro ones and install them. In the UK we had to switch a lot of things over to euro spec for the single vehicle approval (SVA). Probably our best bet if your local dealer can't help would be to contact a UK Military sales dealer (Autovillage) and ask them what they need to do to get the XC90 to pass SVA. They also need to install RHD headlights or re-aim the LHD ones, I'm not sure if the XC90s are adjustable but they should be able to tell you if the US headlights meet the requirements. I don't see why they wouldn't but I guess you never know.

 

IIRC, the main problem with the headlamps will be that US headlamps use a symmetric beam pattern with a higher cut-off. Euro headlamps on the other hand use an asymmetric pattern with a lower cut-off. As such, the US lamps would potentially dazzle and be illegal in Europe.

Re the taillights, when I've been in the States I noticed that some cars didn't have separate turn lamps at the rear but caused the taillights to flash. If that's the case with the XC90, this would probably be illegal too?