sg530

I have been lurking in this forum for a couple of months while waiting for my new silver-grey 530. I have learned a lot and now that I have mine, can understand what people are talking about. This post talks about HUD, Xenons, console storage and navigation.
For the curious out there, my 530 has sports, cold weather and premium packages, comfort seats, xenons, nav and HUD, rear sunscreen. It took 2 months and 1.5 weeks to arrive from order date.
Polarizing sunglasses renders the hud unreadable. I have tried several pair including prescription ones and they make the screen very, very dim. Another hud issue is that very tall people, and I am 6' 1(however very long torso'd) may not see the hud due to the frame in the dash limiting viewability. Fortunately, I can adjust seat enough to work, but if I tilt my head up, my eyes can go above the upper limit of the field of view. Would like it to be easier to see close-up of destination map to substitute for studying roadmap. It just should be easier to survey the nav data at will than the way it does it now.
Ride is firm and trully wonderful as far as feel and precision without being truck-like. One reason to buy this car was the near zero roll on turns. Could use a little more width in foot-well and between arm rests. Could definitely use more storage space. Which brings me to first question...
I have not heard any way to get cell phone box out of center console to gain storage space. How can it be done?
Another imperfection is the excessive glow from the computer screen when set to display off. The backlight lamps stay on and likely got turned on when ignition switch in 1 or 2. Dash adjust only dims them a little. It seems to me, a relay that shuts off the display could also shut off the backlight. This is especially annoying at night since the glow is always in my peripheral vision. I'd like to hear solutions to this.
My main question is regarding the xenon lamps. Nobody seems to discuss them. Until I had the car long enough to drive it at night, I had no idea how things looked with these headlights. Yes, it's like daylight when they are on.... but only in the clearly bound area that they illuminate. Are they are adjusted too low or I am just a novice to their use? I see fine with low beams, but only up to about 60-75 feet ahead of the car, and almost nothing past that. I expected these lamps to light my way in a superior fashion way ahead of me, without the high beams. As for the 'flasher' beams, they behave like anemic old halogen high beams... but they can help to see farther ahead. In unfamiliar residential areas, I'd like to see the street signs and potential obstructions with low beams more than 60 feet ahead. Right now, the brightly lit region of the low beam is so bright my eyes don't adapt to the dark enough to see past them nor does the right hand wedge of the low beam extend far enough up to illuminate the street signs. My guess is BMW is very carefull about the setup of these lamps and likely this is the way they are supposed to be. Will the lamps change with time... like a break-in period? None of the books say anything about this. Also, the demo videos and pictures in the books don't show how it looks either. I have aligned headlights myself (30 years driving) and 'feel' these are set a smidge low.

heezy545i

When I first drove at night, I too thought that the headlights were aimed a bit low, but now I don't really notice anything. Not sure if it's true, but I read that at higher speeds, the lights are more extended and narrow which compared to slower speeds are more broad and in front of the car.

About adjusting, the xenons are self-leveling, so you really don't need to bother with aiming.

browellm

Hi sg530, first, welcome to the board

I agree with you about the LCD panel. The only way to minimise the glare is to turn the dash light-intensity right down, but of course this reduces the speedometer/rev counter lighting as well.

As for the xenons, well maybe I am being spoiled now. This is the first car I've had with Xenons (and adaptive, fwiw). I think they are absolutely awesome. I drove the car in horrendous rain on the A1 in England a few nights ago (there were several stretches of this road with no street lighting), and the xenons provided a huge reduction in driving stress levels.

Agree with full-beams - it's like driving in daylight

paasan

Xenons will "age" - the light in them will change colour over time. But it's probably too little to notice unless you compare used lights to brand new ones. Also.. the bulbs need about 15 seconds to reach a peak in their intensity after they are switched on.

And - xenons are usually aimed a bit lower than halogen bulbs - as they'd otherwise be very uncomfortable to meeting cars.

-paasan

Guest

actually you can change the brightness of your lcd (in idrive menu) without effecting any lights in your spedometer and dashboard.
i found that is very useful in decreasing the glare.

hope this help.

browellm

Very true, but if you do that the "brightness offset" occurs globally - you get it in the day as well as at night.

sj3

The fact that the zenons are self-levelling makes me wonder if our guest's light(s) are 'stuck' a little low and unable to move freely. If it was me, I would take the car in and have them checked. I've got no idea as to how the assembly works.

Sam

sg530

Thanks re xenons. The point about possible leveling malfunction is good one to persue. That begs the big question of how one can test these functions of the lamps and that all is well before making a claim to the service department. I drove slowly over dip in the road and saw no level8ng motion that I could see. It said the response was rapid. Just how rapid?
I discovered the low beams lit such a wide zone that the value of the active headlights was reduced in residential driving. I hark back to the demo animations from bmw showing active headlights that depict the beams extending forward from the lamp. From my seat, there were no narrow beams, just a wide stripe of light all accross the view. It would help to have movie of how it looks at night from the driver's seat. Who can test drive at night anyway? I will try to capture the view with a digital camera. <_<
I got the xenons to see farther. I'd like to be able to at least see street signs at intersections from a good distance.

bbroach

Have the car pointed at a wall on startup - you should see the lamps go through a leveling proceedure (up, down, level) as soon as they come on. As far as adaptive aiming -are you sure you have the control set correctly? On US cars, the adaptive feature is only enabled if the light switch is set to "Auto" (Pages 87 & 88 in US manual). Also, the lights will not swivel towards opposite traffic (left, in the US) when stopped, or at all in reverse.


regards, billb....

sg530

As I said, the benefit of the active headlights was diminished by the swath of light at low beam. There was some articulation of the headlamps during turns, but it was relatively inconsequential since the low beams spread well to either side of the car. I dared not try to drive with highbeams on all the time in residential areas which is all the night driving I have done so far. The active headlight effect likely will be more pronounced then.
I do observe the test sequence at startup since I leave the switch to auto and the garage is dark enough to cause the lamps to come on before I back out. This shows the gimbals of the lamps and the motors are functioning. It does not prove the car can properly sense the various parameters needed to 'create a firing solution' nor carry it out effectively.
I might add that there is a possibly related problem for the steering wheel adjustment (tilt, telescope, auto retract on exit). I am assuming a common computer controls these things, but I likely am wrong about that point. Anyway, the tilt and telescope functions of the wheel have at times not been fully functional and the wheel doesn't flip up as expected for exit/entry ease. Only the side bolsters of my comfort seats 'retract' when I remove the key. Since I keep the seat at a low position, I can't expect any motion there. Thus, there may be also be a seat/wheel memory issue.
Perhaps I should start a new thread with these topics as the subject so more viewers will chime in.