Headlight beam shooting out 90° to the car

[Stately]

Hello, this problem literally developed overnight for me and I have no idea how or why. I have a 2014 Fiesta sedan, and the left headlight beam “leaks” a sliver of light out 90° to the car. I was on the highway, and I was illuminating the car beside me. Most of the light still goes forward, but that slit really distracts me, probably because it wasn’t there before. I attached a picture that shows me nowhere near the front of the headlight and still in the bright portion of the beam. The right headlight doesn’t shine there at all.

 

[econoboxrocks]

I would try removing and reinstalling the headlight. This video shows you how.

The bulb might be out of place. You can check that with the light taken out.

 

[Stately]

I would try removing and reinstalling the headlight. This video shows you how.

The bulb might be out of place. You can check that with the light taken out.

Awesome, thank you. Anything in particular I should look for when the light is out? I removed just the bulb earlier but it didn’t make a difference

 

[Handy Andy]

The light may be from loss of the Lens hood, lampshade the low-beam bulb uses to confine the beam and the light to the cup the reflector so it can focus-stay the light from the beam, forward and not blind or wash out any way of seeing into the fog on a foggy night because the beam may be aimed OK, the lampshade it uses has fallen out of it's holder. That makes the bulb omnidirectional so it's bright light shines out all over 360 degrees.

Look to see if you can find that headlights lampshade - it may have fallen towards the turn signal amber light towards the front inside light in the headlamp assembly.

 

[Stately]

Yes! Ok, so that’s pretty much exactly what I played around with yesterday, removed the headlight and really took a good look. The lampshade was solid and intact, and aligned with its little pin in a hole. It just seems like the shade has to move aft more, because it’s not fully shielding the filament. A few months ago I did replace the bulbs but it wasn’t an issue until this week so no leads there. I tried the old (working) bulb to see if maybe the filaments were a bit longer in the new ones? And it didn’t make a difference.
I haven’t driven in the dark since I removed the headlight, but I did throw a couple washers under the lampshade attachment screw so that I could shim it to move back. It helped a decent amount as far as measuring the leaking light on my shirt, but there’s still a sliver. I’m hoping that when I drive at night the remaining sliver will be insignificant enough that I don’t notice it.
Thanks for getting back to me, it’s the little things that really are irritating.