hey guys,

we just got our E39 back from the shop after a little contact with some road debris put a deep scratch on the front of the hood and took a chuck out of the driver's side headlight.

anyways, they replaced the headlight for us, but it's misalligned, I've tried to reallign it, but even after twisting the vertical allignment knob all the way to the highest setting, the driver's side beam still falls well below the passenger side beam.

I'll try to take a picture of the headlight beams if i can, but i have a feeling it won't turn out.

are there any more adjustments i can make to the headlights short of taking them off?

ps i have the xenons with auto-leveling, pre-angel eyes.

thanks.

Check to see if the headlights were installed properly... if they are anything like the 3series, there are plastic adjustment screws which superceed the alignment screws used to fine tune the headlights. Look at the mounting pounts where the headlight is bolted into the body of the car.

What does superceed mean? I'm having trouble getting my driver side ZKW lowbeam just a bit lower, and the adjustment screws will not bring it lower any lower without the pipe below the screw popping out and basically restarting the whole aiming process.

I had the exact same problem with the M5. Some lady backed into my car and broke the headlight, so we had to have it replaced. The one that was replaced wouldn't align itself, and after taking it in several times, they said that it was actually broken so they had to put another new on in there. After that, the lights we're even at all, and I brought it in at least 10 times (literally) to have them fix it. This was before I knew there were the vertical and horizontal screws to adjust the lights, so all I could do was bring it in. They never fixed the problem, but I ended up finding out about those screws and fixing the problem myself in about 5 minutes.

Anyway, you may want to make sure that it is actually working, and not broken

There are adjustment screws that adjust the mounting position of the headlight assembly... like the whole headlight. Then there are adjustment screws on the headlight assembly that adjust the angle of the lens inside the headlight.

My dealer just quoted a ridculous figure to replace the adjustment screws on my E39 headlights. They are apparently broken, and my headlights jiggle a little when going over bumps in the road, and they are not aligned properly. Four hours of labor time? Please. Total quote was between $600-$700 to do this. Help!

^ ... thats ridiculous. maybe they wanted to replace the headlights??! ... because if those screws are anything like on the E36 they could be had for a few bucks a pop.

My dealer just quoted a ridculous figure to replace the adjustment screws on my E39 headlights. They are apparently broken, and my headlights jiggle a little when going over bumps in the road, and they are not aligned properly. Four hours of labor time? Please. Total quote was between $600-$700 to do this. Help!

If their stock lights, then the adjusters are like $30.00 to fix and a few hours time.

Search for 'adjusters" and you'll find the part numbers/info.

They quoted around $160 for headlight adjusters that are within the headlight casing itself, but said four hours (@ $85/hr) for labor. Are they screwing me here? I thought that the knobs and screws on the back of the light assembly would adjust the beam, but apparently not. The adjusters on the E39 are within the headlight assembly and they say they are broken and need replacing, hence the "jiggle" of the beam at night when going over bumps. Any suggestions? I strapped some heavy duty wire around the socket that the bulb pops into, then strapped the wire to something else on the frame to pull it up to shine further onto the road. I'm not paying $600+ for this BS!