Left Hand drive headlights to RHD ?????

[avonside]

Hi out there,
Does anybody have any experience as to wether LHD headlights can be ' adjusted ' to RHD by using the adjusment screws at the back of the lamp units.OR when I take my X5 back to the uk with me I will have to buy complete new light units @ $1000 each !!!!!.
BTW I have zenon's I dont know if that is better or worse with my request.

Thanxs

steve

[bozo]

Hmm..Ive been told that the X's have "flat beams", (meaning they shoot straight and dont bend). So you should be OK..Even if they dont, the screws should take care of it no problem...

I had my '04 E46 in for MOT a few months back and the headlights were still at US specs....BMW charge us Yanks here in the UK 400 quid to change the light specs to UK while driving here....Believe it or not, the MOT guy charged me a case of Newcastle Brown, and it was back to UK specs perfectly...I even verified it on the MOT light test...So you should have no problem..Is BMW shipping it back for you?!

[x5-in-uk]

I imported a 3.0 x5 from us to uk but to get through sva had to swap lights of a friends but swapped back it passed mot with us lights but not sva.ended up buying xenons of ebay for £85

[powers1]

If you have Xenons,you have a small round rubber cover on top of your headlights which you remove to have access to a lever which you flick to the right or left for LHD or RHD ...........(see the owners manual)

[x5-in-uk]

i have a 2002 and mine did not just solid plastic and they were xenon

[bozo]

You should have the screw..check to see about the flat beams first though...I was told that most German auto makers are using them now...

At the very least, you can get a full SVA for a pretty decent price nowadays..Well at least here you can...Whereabouts are you?

[powers1]

Originally Posted by x5-in-uk

i have a 2002 and mine did not just solid plastic and they were xenon

Weird!I also have a 2002 build X5!Maybe the USA x5´s are different?on page 153 of my owners Manual it says,cars with Xenon headlights:
1-Remove the plugs above headlights.
2-For driving on the left:slide lever towards centre of the car.For driving on the right:slide lever towards outside of the car.

I bought my X5 in Germany and since I reside in Uk,this what saved me $$$$$
when I registered the car on a Uk plate!...........

[avonside]

Unfortunately not, I will be personaly importing my car, but the more I research the details and the fact that my X5 is now 3 1/2 years old,the difference in price is now negligable and makes me wonder wether I should sell the car here before I leave and buy a local uk car for about the same money.The biggest pain is that I dont seem to be able to find a similar spec car, the way the US cars are sold they come with a lot of convienience features and it will be tough to loose them.
BTW my xenons are definatley not adjustable and I think the only answer would be to buy uk regular headlamps,maybe I could find some in a breakers cos main dealer prices for new are crazy.

[bozo]

No way man!! No matter how old or what condition its in, you should bring it back..i dont need to tell you how much X's are over here..You can make some SERIOUS money over here if you sell it here...No matter what..Especially with the exchange rate...

I sold a '96 Dodge Ram (US Spec) here that was only worth like 5 grand(Dollars!)..I sold it in 2 days on AutoTrader for 9000 quid at a 1.88 exchange rate! The only thing is the pertol cost..You will have to find a good market..No problem!

[avonside]

Hi there,
since I started to look for similar X5's at home I did find a few that were similar money BUT the spec was so much more basic.
My 3.0 Nov 01 registered ' 02 spec ' has rear aircon,privacy rear glass,side blinds,auto lights,powered memory seats,19" sports rims with Perrilli scorpion tyres,grey leather seats with the nice light poplar trim,sunroof so as you can see when I went searching for a uk car with similar spec even going up to 35K pounds I couldnt find 1 car that matched.My 40,000 miles X5 is still worth about $33,000 US , so I have decided to go back to plan A which was to bring the car home when we return.
It appears the only thing I now need to do is replace the headlamps with Uk ones,after speaking to a BMW dealer at home I was pleasantly surprised to find out replacing my Xenon lamps will be about 500 pounds for the pair,not too bad I supose.
Thanks for the feedback.