[saxon]

well i am sure I am not the only person who has the ahl bixenon's who either aim low or shake/jump around while driving

seeings how I did not want to spend 1000 each on both of my headlights i bought a headlight cheap from another member to replace and guess what? its broken in the same place as mine was, seeings he was a good guy he refunded me most of my money and i had $50 into a spare light that i could take apart to see exactly why they are failing

the most common failures that everyone will see is the leveling motors have popped out of the socket inside the actual light (you can find numerous write ups about this)
this is that piece and what it looks like outside of the headlight, i dont feel the problem lies here, with the parts out it is virtually impossible to pull straight out on the motor and have the ball pop out of the socket, although it does slide down/up and out very easily

(on the right)

Untitled by saxonbrian2, on Flickr

on the left side of the picture is the part that really worries me, that is the adjustor for the up/down that can be manually adjusted from the outside of the headlight, here is another pic that shows how it goes (it has threads and moves in and out of the gray piece its next to)


Untitled by saxonbrian2, on Flickr

this is the part that i feel is the major problem

Untitled by saxonbrian2, on Flickr

it impossible to fix this part without the headlight being taken apart, and this part is broken on all 3 of the e90 headlights that i have

not only that but look at the adjustor that aims side to side

Untitled by saxonbrian2, on Flickr

it is worn and again, on all 3 headlights this part was popped out of place (but is easily slid back in)

Now if these white pieces were easily accessible one would think we could all fix our headlights very easily, but they cant be bought (to my knowledge) and even if they could these headlights had to have been the hardest I have ever taken apart and basically had to heat to the point that the cover melted

I am sure more and more people will see this happen and eventually everyone will be out of warranty with headlights that point to the ground and bounce around!!!

has anyone else taken apart one of the lights and any pointers for getting them apart?

some more pictures


Untitled by saxonbrian2, on Flickr


Untitled by saxonbrian2, on Flickr

btw have the internals and motors for sale if anyone wants them

[RequestTheOverhead]

This is exactly what happened to my right headlight. The white piece snapped between the physical headlight and the adjustment screw. Incredibly frustrating! I spent several hours with the headlight on my kitchen table trying to reattach the two ends with guerilla glue, but the repair only held for a day or two. I ended up biting the bullet and getting lci headlights to replace my pre-lci's. Planning on selling off most of the internals, and hopefully the complete left headlight, and maybe rip into the broken on and see if a solution can be found. Shitty design on bmw's part to make this stuff so hard to get to without taking the entire headlight apart.

[gatoracer]

Thx for detailed pix. Defintely a design flaw on BMW. Sucks there isn't an easier way to access the adjusters and parts to fix. Then again that would take $$$ from the dealerships.
I asked the SA about the "headlight shake" and he looked at me like I was speaking Greek. Said he had never heard of that. Clueless / BS.

[Surly73]

My thread on my shaky lights is here.

I may have internal problems as well, but from the outside they don't exhibit the classic signs (unable to aim, pointing too low, wiggling the adjustments and bulb casing causes internal to flop around).

I can confirm that my entire assemblies move WAY too much in my pre-LCI sedan. I know there's a TSB but it seems to be coupe/conv only. From my teardowns so far, I can't believe it's designed this way - the light assemblies have almost zero support from the bottom which causes them to bounce around.

I feel this bouncing also causes the excess internal mechanism slop and damage. If the whole light weren't bouncing around so much, it wouldn't promote so much vibration and shaking inside of the assembly either.

E39s have chronic adjuster failures, and several aftermarket options exist which are made of superior materials. We need to get the E9x market going on this too. Perhaps we should approach some of the E39 part-makers to see if they'd make parts for other models. Of course E39 lights are a breeze to open (except for 2003s).

I don't want to go through ripping my lights open if I don't have replacement parts anyways. I'm going to continue working to see if I can stabilize my light housings in the chassis. I've followed and been followed by other pre-LCI and LCI E90 sedans and their lights don't shake even close to as much as mine on the same roads.

[saxon]

Good luck opening the lights, its not as simple as baking them in the oven and peeling them apart, i tried 200 Degas, and it didn't soften it up, 250 the same and 275 melted some things

[Cuticuti]

Saxon

Since you took the light apart, are there any way that we can take out the low beam portion (the sphere lense) without baking the entire housing? My low beam sphere is cloudy and i need to take it out and clean it. Just want to know if it is doable before i start taking the head light apart

[wren57]

Hmm. My low beams work fine, but when I switch on the high beams they stay on for about a minute, flicker when I hit a bump, then go back to being low beams. This might be my problem as well...

[JBE90335]

mine do this as well. People flash their brights at me all the time because they think i'm flashing mine.

[saxon]

Originally Posted by Cuticuti

Saxon

Since you took the light apart, are there any way that we can take out the low beam portion (the sphere lense) without baking the entire housing? My low beam sphere is cloudy and i need to take it out and clean it. Just want to know if it is doable before i start taking the head light apart

its impossible, and to be honest its very hard to even tell whats broken when looking from behind the headlight

these lights might as well be "throw aways"

[be1ieve1111]

I had this issue with my 07 335i, it was covered under warranty. They reinforced the headlights. Not sure how, but the problem was taken care of thereafter.

[Surly73]

Originally Posted by be1ieve1111

I had this issue with my 07 335i, it was covered under warranty. They reinforced the headlights. Not sure how, but the problem was taken care of thereafter.

There's a TSB for coupes and convertibles