Making sense of the headlights

Z

ZedFourM

Active member
 Hampshire
Apologies for the terrible quality of the overlay, but I have been trying to make sense of the (Xenon) lights on my car, and this is what I came up with. It seems that there are a number of redundant areas - presumably so that the car looks the same as ones with Halogen headlights???

Z4headlight2.jpg


Any corrections/suggestions appreciated.

I did notice that the low beam pattern is WAY too low for driving at any sort of speed in the dark - it only lights up the road 2 or 3 car lengths ahead. I'll be adjusting them straight after the car's had its MoT (interestingly, this was also one of the first things I had to do when I got my M5). I also want to figure out how to switch the beam over from RHD to LHD for driving in mainland Europe - I understand it involves access through the flap inside the wheel arch, but not sure what you need to do once you are in there ...
 
Can't help with the beam switching but my Xenons seem to be the opposite of yours. My outside lens is dipped and main beam and the inner one does nothing other than sidelight Angel Eye.
 
Half Colin said:
Can't help with the beam switching but my Xenons seem to be the opposite of yours. My outside lens is dipped and main beam and the inner one does nothing other than sidelight Angel Eye.
Click to expand...
Yup, you are right. I got it the wrong way around. Back to my copy of Paint.exe...

UPDATE: Diagram now updated to include Half Colin's correction.
 
What you see is what you get. The angel eye at the xenon is 'passive', it refracts some main lamp light to achieve it's effect, which is marginal at best. The real explanation is that it was cheaper. The inner lamp is supposedly abandoned because the xenon bits take up too much room. The real explanation is that it was cheaper. Your red area serves as clearance markers on US spec cars. You should be able to place a bulb there, but I couldn't say if it'll illuminate on non-US cars.
 
bcworkz is right, the red section is needed for US spec cars because we need a front side marker. They turn on anytime the parking or main beams are turned on. It's funny because many people here in the US want to code their car to turn it off. If you want to enable it, you'll probably need to code it to US spec. As well, the orange section is on when parking or main beams are turned on and flash for turn or hazards for US spec cars. The light control module in the Z4 has allot of programing option to change the operation of the lighting system. I really wish I had a flash to pass inner Halogen light instead of the dummy with angle eye.
 
If you want to switch from RHD to LHD, I think you are going to need to change the entire projector out. The cutoff shield in front of the bulb is different.

One looks like this: ________/-----------

The other like this: ---------\__________
 
hope this helps hehehe


well tore apart my light after replacing it with the new one and found out a bunch of stuff about our angel eyes.

here are some shots of the parts. first the light is a one peice unit, you cant replace the light itself so all those LED replacments wont work unless its a speacial unit, the light is heat staked in the housing.

the inner most lense is painted over, their is a blue paint that makes our angel eye look more blueish white rather than the warm yellow,
here are some pics to look over........


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76.jpg

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6-1.jpg

2343.jpg

5656.jpg
 
so, in other words, there is no way to achieve drl's in inner lenses (marked green on the diagram) in the way, eg. 5 series e65 has it?
 
One small comment is over the differences of Xenons between Pre & post facelift - the Pre facelifts have a Xenon outer & halogen inner bulb, post facelifts that I saw last Sunday only use the outer lamp as mentioned in your post
 
I meant to add that on my Xenons there is a small lever that adjusts for continental driving. Difficult to find though if you open the bonnet & remove the cover in the wheel arch + headlight rear cover, you should find it.

There's an excellent article showing a picture of the lever on a forum thread, easily missed & even think in one of your picture I can see this. Put simply it puts a blanking plate over the verge side of your beam so you don't dazzle oncoming traffic. The first time you attempt this will be a nightmare... Once found you will see the light...
 
@McKoval: There's almost always a way to achieve something if you want to spend enough time and effort, but as far as a practical adaptation, there is indeed no way.

What -c- didn't mention is he had to dremel out the bulb holder to remove the bulb. BMW would have you replace the whole assembly, an expensive bit of plastic, just to replace a cheap, common bulb. Oh, the arrogance!

Thanks -c-, pics were very helpful.
 
Hate the headlights on my z4 poor compared to focus zenons or even audi with better bulbs.
 
So can someone confirm that if I buy a UK Z4 to drive here (Spain) all I need to do is flick a lever to convert the lights from rhd to lhd?

If so, this is great news as I'd have to buy a set of lhd lights for it to be legal...
 
Naith said:
So can someone confirm that if I buy a UK Z4 to drive here (Spain) all I need to do is flick a lever to convert the lights from rhd to lhd?

If so, this is great news as I'd have to buy a set of lhd lights for it to be legal...
Click to expand...

No this is not correct. They cannot be converted. On a rhd light the converter lever merely cuts off the left flick used to illuminate the hedge/pavement. The result is a flat beam designed not to dazzle when driven on the other side of the road. LHD lights are the opposite so unless local regulations allow a flat beam then you'd need to convert for permed ant use.
 
Well certainly for starters you'd be able to run them with just the flat beam pattern, but need to check local regulation on beam pattern for vehicle importing, annual testing, etc.

In any event you shoudl be able to pick up a cheap set of LHD of either Ebay UK or Germany
 
I'm currently trying to make sense of the headlights myself at the moment. Everyone on here mentions xenons but every Z4 i've ever seen has had xenons. Do people mean bi-xenons and only regard them as being worthy of the name xenons within the Z4 community? The other ones (like what are fitted to my car) being termed halogens as the inner most light is a regular 501 and H7 affair. It's very confusing on this car.
 
Mowflow said:
I'm currently trying to make sense of the headlights myself at the moment. Everyone on here mentions xenons but every Z4 i've ever seen has had xenons. Do people mean bi-xenons and only regard them as being worthy of the name xenons within the Z4 community? The other ones (like what are fitted to my car) being termed halogens as the inner most light is a regular 501 and H7 affair. It's very confusing on this car.
Click to expand...

All xenons fitted to Z4 are bi-xenon meaning that they operate on both dipped and main beam. In the instance of the Z4 by dropping a shield that removes the cut-off for dipped beam.

If all the examples you've looked at have xenon then you're either looking at ///M's or have been lucky.

Standard fitment is halogen H7's and they are widely regarded as useless.

Are you sure all the examples you're looking at have xenon? Extenally they look identical to the casual eye and can best be determined by other factors such as single knurled adjuster on the darsh switch, decals under the bonnet, flicker on start-up, etc.
 
Mine are xenon as main beam and halogen as high beam - single xenon if you like - which is standard on Alpina Lux models?


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