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Old 12-10-2022, 02:43 PM
sgrice sgrice is offline
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I helped my son with a very similar symptom (right side adaptive headlight pointing to right and blinking green led light on the control switch) several months ago. Of course, sometimes different problems can cause similar symptoms, so our experience may not totally correlate with yours. But hopefully what we found/did will be helpful to you. It's been awhile so I've forgotten a few things (like the specific error code we got when scanning the car) - sorry about that.



Here is what his car looked like:




So this obviously has to do with the adaptive headlight system (AHL), which normally makes the headlights move in conjunction with the steering wheel to better illuminate the road when going around curves. Normally when you start the car/turn on the lights the headlights are supposed to move up/down/side to side. In our case they didn't move at all. My understanding/recollection is that the AHL is controlled both by a central module (which is located behind the glovebox above the general module), and by two other additional modules (one for each headlight and located on the bottom of each headlight assembly). To narrow down which module might be at fault, we took the headlight assemblies out and swapped the modules that are on each headlight assembly from right to left. No change in symptoms. Plus, as I recall, we were not able to communicate with the central module when we scanned the car. So the above led us to conclude the problem was with the central module located behind the glovebox. We purchased a used replacement module from ebay ( Here is a link to another ebay listing for said module), but after replacement it still didn't work. Not sure if we got a bad replacement module, or if our diagnosis was wrong. So at that point we gave up on trying to fix it (the adaptive feature wasn't that important to my son anyway), and instead centered the headlight (discussed next), unplugged the central module (why we did this discussed below), and called it a day.


Centering the headlight can be done manually. It is much easier to do with the headlight assemblies off the car, but if you're careful/use a mirror/willing to risk dropping screws into the abyss it can be done while still in the car. You need to remove the 4 T20 (or maybe T25?) screws that hold the headlight cover in place, remove the cover, then unplug the xenon connector, and then remove the xenon light assembly. After this the gearshafts that control the headlight movement are reachable with a pick/angled screwdriver. I remember the horizontal bottom gearshaft controlled right/left, but not which way I spun the gearshaft to center the headlight. Of course, fairly obvious when you're doing it. Try it one way, and if you're wrong then go the other. Here is a picture of the back of the assembly - the horizontal bottom gearshaft has a brass color and is seen just below where the xenon light assembly goes in.








And here is what it looked like after spinning the gearshaft a bit.








Here is why the central module was ultimately left disconnected: Initially after the ebay module failed to solve the problem, we put the original module back in and left it connected- wistfully hoping that it might come back to life and work properly at some point. Apparently it did have some functionality, but certainly not proper functionality! After a few weeks my son noticed the headlight had gone back to the rightward deflection. So maybe the module could control the headlight, but not correctly? So we went back and disconnected the module, re-centered the headlight, and all has been fine since (no adaptive function, but my son is fine with that).


Hope the above makes sense. If you're going to this, one thought might be to replace the xenon light assembly at the same time. They do dim over time. Of course, if they seem plenty bright to you then maybe there's no need to replace them.


Good luck, let us know what you do.


Stephen
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Stephen
2010 e70 35d- now driven by son #2
2005 e53 3.0 - now driven by son #1
2021 G05 45e PHEV - now driven by me
2008 ML320 CDI - driven by wife

Last edited by sgrice; 12-10-2022 at 02:55 PM.
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