What did you do to / for your E53 today??

[4.8isguy]

Here is how it stands currently. I definitely do notice the left hand beam cut off higher then the right. It does make it noticeably more comfortable cruising in the fast lane which is where I usually am. But, I haven’t had much time driving on two way streets to see if there’s any issue blinding people. It doesn’t look that significant but you never know.

I do need to figure out this lighting issue on why the drivers side headlights isn’t consistently working. My buddy thinks my lcm might be faulty. But let’s see.

[andrewwynn]

If you have dynamic headlights, I think only the passenger light aims left and right.

To aim your headlights, point your car about 25' from a light colored wall, helps if there are reference lines like a garage door with rectangles.

The center of the hot spots should be pointed straight forward so what I do is line the wheels up on a perpendicular groove in the driveway, then measure over from there to put some marks on the door at the horizontal distance.

For the vertical, it's easy if your driveway is flat (can be angled just planar): measure the height right outside to the transition point on the light output. Put a piece of tape at the same height on the door.

Aim the DRIVERS SIDE transition point to be just barely below that tape.

This will set up the best output: you won't blind anybody in a car that court l costs less than $300,000 USD. (Supercars that are short enough to be in the bright zone that's just par for the course for them)

Notice how in the photo above, the bright zone never gets higher than the posts; they are about the height of the bottom of a windshield of a normal car so the bright will not blind incoming cars at all.

[Overboost]

Originally Posted by andrewwynn

If you have dynamic headlights, I think only the passenger light aims left and right.

I have dynamic xenons and left and right headlights both move up/down, left/right.

[andrewwynn]

Originally Posted by 4.8isguy

Here is how it stands currently. I definitely do notice the left hand beam cut off higher then the right.

So it's a misnomer that one side is cut off vs the other; each lamp projects a nearly identical beam 4' apart from each other. About 50' away there's almost no difference at all.

There has to be something very very wrong for one side to affect your beam pattern like you are describing.

To confirm if there's a problem with one or the other side, park aimed at a light colored wall about 50-60 feet away:

Now stand in front of the car and block one beam vs the other there should be almost no difference in the beam pattern from the right or left lamp.

If there is find the source and fix. Eg if one beam is high/low or right/left, work on fixing that.

A big problem with hid is that they dim exponentially as they age and need to be replaced in pairs. When I bought my car, PO had replaced only one lamp and the other was very blue and about 80% dimmer just moronic.

They were also aimed into the dirt as as over 90% of cars on the road. HID need to be aimed close to zero degrees not down even half a degree: since there is effectively zero output above the shadow plate, the math works out terribly for those miss aimed headlights.

If for example your headlights are aimed 1.5° down then if your headlight centerline is 30" off the ground you will have zero light past 100 feet when you should be illuminating at least 300' with low beams.

Virtually every car I see makes two bright spots less than 60' from the front of the car and studies have shown that as bad as it was ten or fifteen years ago, with HID lamps it's gotten exponentially worst. The last study I read gave 8 out of ten cars an F and only B and C for the remaining two cars.

I've been setting my headlights at zero degrees since 1996. I can see 3 to 8x farther than average. I strongly encourage anybody to copy me.

Here is an example of real world for me:

As I'm driving down the highway and I notice that the highway signs seem to be backlit they are so bright: there can be 5 other cars near me but if I blink off my headlights, the illumination of the sign goes away entirely.

It will seem weird at first if you are accustomed to bright spots on the ground right in front of you but a blinding spot close to you is useless compared to even illumination hundreds of feet farther!

[andrewwynn]

Originally Posted by Overboost

I have dynamic xenons and left and right headlights both move up/down, left/right.

Minor misspeak: I believe I saw in the manual that though both headlights aim left and right only the passenger side will aim left of center. I'm not sure if either aims left of center (right of center on RHD cars). The idea of course is that the lights won't aim into oncoming traffic. If I'm incorrect that would be good since if the road is curved, the centerline is farther left when curving left.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[andrewwynn]

Followup:

Just found this online:

Adjustment of headlight horizontal aim
Horizontal adjustment range of headlights
· Inwards (towards vehicle centre line): approx. 7-8 Deg
· Outwards: 15 Deg

That makes more sense than not turning at all past centerline.

Now I'm envious of the folk with adaptive lights. I guess another bucket list thing after dynamic drive.

[LVR]

Started to rectify various issues with our new (to us) 4.8is. It's the better half's car as she wanted a V8 again...Engine is strong, no gearbox issues and pretty low mileage (the car lol)...

It's been sitting unused for over a year (outside also) so has some maintenance to do to get it back up to standard.

The boot lid catch wasn't working so I swapped out the one on my 4.4 and the struts that were buggered until I get replacements.

Gave the seats a work over with some leather conditioner as they are dry as..gonna need a few goes at this...

Now got a list of rattles to deal with inc the window blinds to the rear passenger doors, a rattle up around the sunroof somewhere, a loud 'clunk' when we open the sunroof and some suspension issues. We are finding that the seats don't lower when they go back to the memory settings but put that down to key batteries flat.

I've started the recharging them on the oral b stand trick to see if I can get them back but no joy so far...

Also have a loud grinding noise in the steering wheel region (not suspension) which I think has something to do with the clock spring area....

It collapsed on the nose the other day so had a look at the sensors... one somehow angled downwards in the lever so undid it to make it the same as the other side.




Bought it pretty cheap so we're not at all put off by the things that need to be looked at.

[FRod1981]

Originally Posted by Overboost

I have dynamic xenons and left and right headlights both move up/down, left/right.

Mine definitely don’t move left. Maybe some speed is required? Broken?

[andrewwynn]

Yes forward motion required*. The computer takes into account how fast you are moving to determine how far to aim the lights left and right. The formula is pretty complicated. Perhaps not as complicated as the algorithm for adaptive headlights for motorcycles which lean angle has to also be factored in.

* For some functions like how far left it aims.


I'm pretty sure my foxwell will test the lights (I only have leveling and it will send them full up and down on command). They also go through a calibration when the car is turned on you might be able to see the reflector move when first powered up.

[Overboost]

Originally Posted by FRod1981

Mine definitely don’t move left. Maybe some speed is required? Broken?

Originally Posted by andrewwynn

Yes forward motion required*. They also go through a calibration when the car is turned on you might be able to see the reflector move when first powered up.