Today I made the mistake of trying to beat a yellow light.

Unknowingly to me, the road a tiny bit after the light wasn't the most even nor level of roads. I hit an upwards bump while still accelerating hard.. If I didn't know better, I'd say my front weels got some air. Came back down pretty hard. Lost control for a split second, probably due to traction control freaking out due to some tries getting off the ground.

However, as I was coming down, I heard a loud crack. Having just regained control and fearing the worst, I pull over.

My headlights are facing upwards! In all honesty, I was quite happy to see that this was the only thing that got messed up. I feared for my front bumper having been managed, suspension blowing, wheels cracking, etc.

Anyways, I open the hood, and the headlights seem to have disconnected themselves from the holding brackets. The outer ones (clip offs) disconnected themselves. The inner ones though (non-clip offs)... also disconnected themselves.

I have one picture below. I didn't take many, since I was pulled over on the side of the road. Same thing happened on both headlights. I'm thinking this weekend I'm going to take the headlights out again and see about epoxying them back together. Not sure how that'll hold though. I feel like a minor bump in the road will be able to snap the epoxy.

 

long time ago in my lifted truck while offroading i broke a tab off my headlights...used to JB weld, like new and help up til the day i sold it years later. i think you should be fine with some JB weld, just dont use the quick one, use the regular one, let it sit for as long as you can before you apply any pressure.

 

I have a feeling if you look you will find more damage than you think. I think when you hit, the front bumper actually hit the ground and pushed the headlights up,this is what broke the brackets. Hard saying what damage is behind the bumper or to the underside of the car.

 

This sounds very logical. I find it hard to believe you would break your headlight brackets from just "getting some air". I would do as l1tech says and give the front end a good once over.

 

I feel the same way about this as well. It's very unlikely to me that if it was simple as you thought since the headlights are also held down by two screws on the bottom as well, and it should be pretty damn solid in place. Did you look at those screws and possibly the bracket underneath?

 

Use the repair kit (which I hate) or use some crazy glue. Works well. Epoxy or JB weld is good too but crazy glue is quick!

 

Yeah, that's still a worry for me.

The bumper did hit the ground - I verified the presense of a bit of road rash on the underside of it. It wasn't too bad though. From the looks of it, it seems like it was only the bumper that took the hit. I'm still carefully inspecting around however. All bulbs everywhere are still functioning, there aren't any strange noises, steering is still fine, no visible cracks on the wheels, etc.. I'm considering removing the bumper to be more thorough. I'd rather find anything loose/bent now than find it when it poses a real problem.

I've used JBWeld for some stuff in the past, and have had good results... Forgot that stuff existed. I'll be picking up some this weekend and giving it a try.

Thanks for the suggestions guys

 

BMW makes repair kits for this. Once installed you can't tell.