Wonky Adaptive Headlight

[froop]

Ok first things first. Take a look at the picture, get the laughing out of your system and then help me come up with a solution



I purchased a set of stone chip damaged AHL LCI headlights off someone and when they arrived I noticed that the RHS outside light was wonky. I thought that I could fix it by manually turning the adjustment screw at the top but didn't test it before I gave it to my smash repairer to install since my car was already in there getting repaired after someone did a hit and run on my car.

Anyways, turns out that the adjustment screw only allows for maybe a few degrees of lateral movement before it hits a stop and now it looks like my car has crazy eyes with eyeballs pointing all different directions.

Anyone have any ideas on how I can fix this? My car doesn't have AHL. I just purchased and installed them for the LCI eyebrows.

I've thought of taking them off and installing them in a car with AHL and hoping that it will straighten them out once it senses the steering wheel position but that is a huge hassle trying to find someone who's willing to do that for me. I'd like to see if there are any other options before I go down that route.

[vtl]

Looks pretty funny haha

If you pop the back cover off the headlight is the headlight positioning arm plugged in properly into the socket for the lens? May have just popped out during shipping?

Probably just needs coding, i didn't think you would need any additional modules to get it work? I would have thought all you need to do is add the adaptive headlights to your vehicle order iun NCSExpert and recode to get it working?

[vtl]

Heres the retrofit instructions for e90, no additional hardware just some wiring. Probably a couple more wires for the eyebrow since youre fitting LCI ones

Remove $522 (xenons) from VO and add $524 (adaptives) and recode the modules in expertmode with NCSExpert.

Can't imagine the headlights being aimed correctly unless the retrofit is done properly with coding all

[froop]

Originally Posted by vtl

Heres the retrofit instructions for e90, no additional hardware just some wiring. Probably a couple more wires for the eyebrow since youre fitting LCI ones

Remove $522 (xenons) from VO and add $524 (adaptives) and recode the modules in expertmode with NCSExpert.

Can't imagine the headlights being aimed correctly unless the retrofit is done properly with coding all

Thanks for that.

Sorry but I'm really bad with wiring and everything.

Do you mean to say that even if my car doesn't have AHL I can just plug some AHL headlights in, code it, wire it and it should work? I thought that modules and things were required for it to work.


Also, does anyone know if the angle of that is normal for an AHL light? I just want to make sure it's not completely broken or something. Hopefully I can drive it tonight when the sun goes down and not blind everyone driving on the opposite side of the road lol.

[vtl]

Originally Posted by froop

Thanks for that.

Sorry but I'm really bad with wiring and everything.

Do you mean to say that even if my car doesn't have AHL I can just plug some AHL headlights in, code it, wire it and it should work? I thought that modules and things were required for it to work.

Also, does anyone know if the angle of that is normal for an AHL light? I just want to make sure it's not completely broken or something. Hopefully I can drive it tonight when the sun goes down and not blind everyone driving on the opposite side of the road lol.

All the adaptives on e92s I've seen point straight when the wheels are straight. If you bought them from a wrecked car chances are they were removed when the wheels weren't straight.

All the logic for the active headlights are in the footwell module. All the calibration tables and stuff are in there when I look at the coding in NCSDummy. Because you have a 135i it came with xenons from the factory and already has headlight leveling sensors fitted. Shouldn't require anything else according to that official BMW retrofit document.

You can buy the pin connectors from ebay and make up your own harness. Most of the pins are called MQS (micro quadlock system) connectors. Yes, its a bit tedious sourcing all the pins and stuff but you get a OEM level retrofit. I went through the same process when retrofitting my high beam assist mirror.

[froop]

Originally Posted by vtl

All the adaptives on e92s I've seen point straight when the wheels are straight. If you bought them from a wrecked car chances are they were removed when the wheels weren't straight.

All the logic for the active headlights are in the footwell module. All the calibration tables and stuff are in there when I look at the coding in NCSDummy. Because you have a 135i it came with xenons from the factory and already has headlight leveling sensors fitted. Shouldn't require anything else according to that official BMW retrofit document.

You can buy the pin connectors from ebay and make up your own harness. Most of the pins are called MQS (micro quadlock system) connectors. Yes, its a bit tedious sourcing all the pins and stuff but you get a OEM level retrofit. I went through the same process when retrofitting my high beam assist mirror.

Yeah that's what I was thinking too. A bit odd though that LH headlight is pointing dead straight but the right one is so far off unless they pulled off the left with the steering wheel straight and the right with the steering wheel turned but that's a bit weird haha.

Hmmmm wow so I could actually get AHL for my car without having to buy another module or anything? That would be pretty cool I guess.

Is it possible to just splice cables like for the eyebrows or do I really need to create a new harness?

[vtl]

I think theres some missing pins in your harness so thats why the the ALC don't work. The retrofit harness is just filling in those blanks, not replacing the entire light harness.

The instructions are actually pretty good, the only thing you'll need to figure out is the cable lengths.

The main ALC harnesse has like 8 pins (to headlight) and go into 3 (to footwell module), the harness is internally branched out and you can figure out what you need to make by looking at the wire colours. Pretty simple harness actually

You can also double check you've done everything correctly by consulting BMW WDS (wiring diagram system) or ISTA-D/Rheingold

[reisf]

I'm about 70% sure here but i think the footwell modules (from factory) are different for the different types of headlights, but replacement footwell modules (purchased brand new) can be used on any car.

As i thought it was, there were 3 or 4 types of footwell modules and they are labelled as:

"BASIS" - For halogens
"LED XE" - For Bi-Xenons
"AHL" - For Adaptive bi-xenon headlights
(And theres another label for cars that come with fog lights but i can't remember)

What you might find is when you try to recode your footwell module, the module wont accept the coding and return an error message saying it failed.

Forgive me if i'm completely incorrect but i thought the info might help.

P.s Where did you get the headlights from? I haven't seen a single 1 series in Australia that has adaptive xenons.

[froop]

Originally Posted by reisf

I'm about 70% sure here but i think the footwell modules (from factory) are different for the different types of headlights, but replacement footwell modules (purchased brand new) can be used on any car.

As i thought it was, there were 3 or 4 types of footwell modules and they are labelled as:

"BASIS" - For halogens
"LED XE" - For Bi-Xenons
"AHL" - For Adaptive bi-xenon headlights
(And theres another label for cars that come with fog lights but i can't remember)

What you might find is when you try to recode your footwell module, the module wont accept the coding and return an error message saying it failed.

Forgive me if i'm completely incorrect but i thought the info might help.

P.s Where did you get the headlights from? I haven't seen a single 1 series in Australia that has adaptive xenons.

Thanks for the reply.

I purchased them off a member in QLD who had a 1M. To be honest, if it doesn't work with coding and harnesses I'm going to have to try and find someone with AHL to plug it in and turn the steering wheel and hopefully it will straighten up...