Highbeams (Brights) Won't Stay On

[PropellerHead]

Originally Posted by Tinox5

What do you mean user error..?
I had the car Infront of my garage at night that's how I noticed that it only flicks one time then go off to my regular lights, when I attempt to try to turn them on after nothing happens
No flicks or nothing just my regular lights are on and don't change

User error means you are not reading and absorbing what is being told to you here. The result of user error is that you expect one thing to happen that is not going to happen bc the lights are not designed the way you expect them to be.

Problem/expectation:
You want another set of lights to turn on and stay on when you push the stalk forward.

Reality:
They don't. They won't. They're not supposed to. Both high and low beams use the SAME single bulb on each side.

Solution:
Read the posts and the above advice here again and do your best to understand what to expect and how to determine if they're functioning correctly.

Why the problem likely does not exist:

1. You've said here that you expect something to happen that will not.
2. It is extremely rare that both mirrors in the headlight assemblies will fail at the same time.
3. Based on what you say here, the lights function as they are supposed to.

Next step:
Take it to someone who can show you how they're supposed to work or watch this video. The E53 lights do exactly the same thing as E70 (and any other bi-xenon) lights.:

[Tinox5]

Maybe I haven't made my self clear, I'll take a video of it and post it here in a Lil you can see for your self what I mean

[PropellerHead]

Originally Posted by Tinox5

Maybe I haven't made my self clear, I'll take a video of it and post it here in a Lil you can see for your self what I mean

Sounds like a solid plan.

[Tinox5]

2004 BMW e53/x5 high beams not working. - YouTube
Okay here's the video I just made an hour ago

[Zulu95]

SOP!

[Tinox5]

What's sop?

[Zulu95]

Go up to #11.

[PropellerHead]

Well, this proves exactly what I was saying. Check these two screen caps. See the lil 'upward notch' in the light pattern on the second pic? They're working as designed.

Low (top) High (bottom):

[TerminatorX5]

The Standard Operating Procedure for a set of bi-xenon lights.

The lights operate off a D2R xenon High Intensity Discharge (HID) bulb that requires a ballast to ignite the oxides and salts inside the bulb. The igniting voltage is in the vicinity of 25,000 V, give or take 10% (on better ballasts, 5%), after the light ignites, the voltage drops down to normal level to sustain the bulb ignited. since the HID light take time to ignite and then cool off (oxides solidify inside the bulb when electrical chanrge is not applied), and firing them off again in a quick succession will result in premature failure, the manufacturers emplyed the following tactics to achieve the high beam with the HID and also satisfy a common road practice of flashing light as a road courtesy.

When the turn signal stalk is pulled towards the driver, the highbeams that are closer to the center of the car (inner lights) ignite a regular, incandescent light bulb that has been used by industry for decades. The same action will extinguish the front fog lights on the cars used in the markets where it is against the law to operate the high beam simultaneously with the front fog lights. The effect of this action is momentary - the high beams will stay as long as the stalk is manually held in the pulled position, and the engine is running regardless if the main lightning of the car is on or not.

when the stalk is pushed away from the driver, a metal shield inside the projector light assembly is moved by the means of a mechanical relay, thus opening the mechanical blockage of the light and making the light pattern instead of being cut-off at the top, to be circular in the appearance. The fogs still extinguish.

I should have pictures of the opened bixenons by Hella that illustrate this point.

As a result, when you flash the highbeams at somebody, you activate the halogen light bulbs in the inner set of lights, when you turn the bi-xenon lights on, you remove the metal shield from the path of the light coming from D2R. In the real life settings, it could be hard to see the real difference between the low beams and the high beams, unless you are on a seriously dark road, and then you see...

All of that, assuming that the system operates as designed... Of course, there could be a gazillion errors that are not accounted for in this explanation...

[TerminatorX5]

from the video that you had posted, it is clear that your bi-xenons working fine, but it is also evident that you need the lights aligned... search for alignment procedure on the forum, it should be written up several times...

put your eye to the headlight but make sure that the light is not shining brightly into your eye, but rather you can see that cut-off line... have someone throw the regular highbeams on, not the flashing ones, but the push-away-stalk ones... be prepared to be blinded...

On the other hand, this is a very cruel way to prove a point...