Xenon headlight alignment problem

[JS_4.8]

My mom owns a 01 4.4i - 120K miles and running great

However her headlights had recently become very dim, so I decided to replace her xenon bulbs.

Just got done with it this afternoon, replaced them with genuine Philips 4300K bulbs. Bulbs look great, however I noticed her driver side headlight is definitely pointing higher than the other side.

I never checked the alignment before I did the install, so I wasnt sure if it was something I had did. After talking to her and hearing... "ohhhh, maybe thats why people sometimes high beam me even when I dont have my brights on", I determined this problem has been around for a while lol

So parked in front of the garage in the shade, turned on the lights, opened the hood, and starting turning the adjustment knob on the drivers side healight. It was moving (ever so slowly) down until it was almost in line with the other side....and then I hear a little pop and it moved back up to where it was. I say "oh shit", because it now appears the adjustment mechanism is broken - turning the knob yields no movement of the beam as it did before.

SO...has anyone even had this happen? I am assuming the only fix is to replace the headlight (which is not an option on a 120K old car). Just curious as to why this happened, and if there is something I am missing to maybe bypass this. To be honest, the misalignment isnt THAT bad - but enough to bother some drivers and anyone with OCD (ie, me lol) crazy!!

Thanks for any replies

[simoncpw]

It happened to me a couple of days ago while replacing the headlights, and it turned out the "joint" from the adjusting knob at center of the headlight had popped out.

To fix:
1) open up the plastic cover at the back of the Xenon bulb.
2) Look inside toward the top in the middle of the headlight, you should see a white "plastic stick" (extended from where the adjusting knob is)
3) look at the metal frame of the headlights (directly facing the plastic stick), there is a little hole where the edge of the "plastic stick" should go in
4) pull the metal frame of the headlights and pop it back into the plastic stick (I did it by holding and pulling where the Xenon bulb socket is).

FYI, while doing #4, I accidentally popped out the joint from the leveling motor as well. This can be fixed by opening taking out the leveling motor and slide it back in.

Hope this helps.

[JS_4.8]

Excellent writeup - thanks very much.

I will give this a try tomorrow