Today was the first day I drove at night in my 530XI and I noticed something strange with the headlights.

The right side seems to be a bit brighter. When looking straight on, the right side head lamp looks a bit more clear and whitish compared to the left.

When I'm driving this is the line I see created by the headlights, it's really messing with my vision:

(excuse my mspaint skills)



Any ideas?

 

Thats actually normal... its to prevent u from blinding on coming traffic.

 

Take a look at the drawing depicted in this picture from BMW




http://www.bmw.ro/ro/ro/newvehicles/mserie...headlights.html

 

Very interesting diagram, thank you.

FWIW I was driving at 10:30pm w/ headlights turned to 'auto'. The light pattern looked similar to 4 or 5...

 

Then the diagram should explain everything. It didn't take me long to adjust, the lighting is actually much better than other cars - puts light right where you need it. I am not sure I could drive a car without adaptive headlights anymore (good thing my next car will be an M5)

 

Getting used to the sharp cut-off of the lights also takes some getting used to. The beam of "normal" incandescents sort of fade away at their farthest point vs the beams of your adaptive headlights. If you actually put markers out on the road you'd see the better level of illumination at the edges of the light pattern. It's also a whiter light that may actually "seem to be" less noticeable than the less white patterns of older style halogen bulbs.

It takes some getting used to!

 

+1 love seeing the lights move when I turn the wheel. Sick!

 

Exactly, the sharp cut-off from really bright to really dark looks like a line to me and is messing with my vision. (I'm not old either, just turned 29)

Everything else has been pretty easy to get used to including the I-drive.

I'm sure I'll get used to it, thanks for the help everyone.

 

I actually think this is a very clever design.

 

Its just lights! Oh man... if they put so much thought into lights imagine the other stuff...