Ok it seems in direct sunlight all lights are off (low beams and rings) so they do work but must be very sensitive to crappy Irish weather.

 

Hi,

Over in Asia, my 2006 E60 will have the AE and low beam on whenever i ticked DRL option in Idrive. Initially i was very fustrated and thot my auto headlight is not working as my lights are on regardless of sunny or not. Afetr i diable the drl, my lights will turn on when i start my car in carpark and once i exit, the light will turn off when its bright. I have 2 qns : what is flash to pass and how do i see the difference between halogen and xenon headlight? and are all xenon light bi xenon? Thanks.

 

"flash to pass" is used to signal slow moving cars in the fast lane that you want to pass them and they should move over to the slow lane...the high beams are activated when you pull the turn signal lever toward the driver and turn off when you release the lever.

Halogens lights are yellow in color compared to xenon. Very noticable especially when seen side by side.

Probably all xenon on E60 are bi-xenon meaning one light can serve as both low and high beam. A solenoid move the reflector to chane the beam pattern from low to high beam. Older cars that did NOT have bi-xenon used a combination of xenon low beams and halogen high beam. Xenon is not used as flash to pass because rapid on/off of the xenon lamp is not good for it (ballast), but the xenon lamp needs a second or two to warm up.

 

Don't refere to a pre-LCI as "old car", please

For the rest he's right...

 

Hi thanks for the detailed explaination..so i guess mine is an old car with halogen as high beam as when i pull the signal lever toward me, my inner light will flash instead of the xenon itself. Hence i guess that is non bi xenon. However, i dont think my car got the flash to pass function...here if there is slow moving behicle in front of a fast lane, we will high beam or horn them thou its not very "polite" Alternative, we overtake.

 

No no, I meant older as in before the E60 existed. The early xenon were just on low beams. High beams were halogen.

 

I think you misunderstood my explanation?when you pull the control lever toward you, it activates the inner halogen lamp. This IS the flash to pass feature. Normal low and high beam functions are accomplished with the outer bi-xenon light. Xenon high beam is accomplished by pushing lever forward.

 

Thanks DavidF, i tried it out and you are right. Previously, as both flash to pass and high beam have the same icon in the dash, i assume both are the same except that one is temp and one is permanent..just like our signal. Thanks again for the clarification.