So I bought my BMW used, an '03 with 29,800 miles, fully loaded in immaculate condition. I drive it off the lot, joy ride all day. Bring it home, decide to drive it to a friend's house to show off at night, flip on the headlights, and it looks like this

O.o

Left headlight points at the ground, right headlight points straight. This car came with only one key and no user manual (car was part of a corporate fleet, so documents and the extra key went missing), so I have no idea how to do it.

HELP!

Any idea how to align them?

T

Any idea how to align them?

Oddly, there's nothing in the owner's manual about aligning the headlamps. I just went out and looked under the hood and I don't seen any adjustment screws either.

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/aim/aim.html

The headlamps aren't always perfectly aimed at the factory. They've been aimed low on just about all of the BMWs I've driven recently.

Well, I found the headlight screws. If you pop the hood, there's a plastic screw right behind the headlight assembly.

There was a prior accident that I'm aware of on the Carfax report. There was a police report, but no repair through a repair facility, which leads me to believe something was hit, but not too bad. Apparently bad enough to damage the headlight, because when I went to align the one shooting up (the one I thought was straight is actually shooting up), the screw doesn't do anything, which means damage.

I'll let the dealership I bought it from know about it, I bought an extended warranty for 60,000 miles or 5 years (starting from when I bought the car). I'll have to get it fixed.

T

I completely agree. As far as frame damage, I don't know. On the carfax report, it says the car hit a stationary object. This could mean a few things like another car, a street pole, a street sign...anything really.

I'm stuck with the car now, so I'm going to make due with what I have. I have an extended warranty on it, so I guess I'll use it for whatever breaks. Unfortunately it doesn't cover previous frame damage. I just hope I'm not stuck with a pile of metal. It runs really great, so we'll see.

Thanks for the info, you've been pretty right on with most of it without me even saying anything about the accident.

T

They did show me the Carfax report without any frame damage on it. I'll definitely look into the frame damage.