Murdered530xi

Maybe I'm getting old. Maybe I'm just use to my wife's Kia but nighttime driving for me is becoming more difficult now that I'm 50. Yes, I do need glasses to drive and no, I'm not wearing them...but that's only going to help with clarity and definition.

Here's my problem. When I bought the car, the prior owner had gone around and replaced every single bulb with bright white LED's. The problem with bright white light, unless your driving around with snow all around, the light from bright white LEDs int the 6k wavelength seems to absorb into the roadside and it doesn't reflect back enough to show shadows and definition. So I replaced all of the lights back to factory. The light pattern itself is fine I think, though the driver's side low beam seems to to be pitched down slightly lower that the passengers side. Not by much. The horizon line across a wall at 30 ft shows a slight cropping...but if I have the fog lights on that infills the area and it's not a problem...though if I'm being honest I'd love to have the low beams pitched up maybe another 3% or so...and not sure exactly how to do this.

For the high beams, the pattern is perfect and illuminates a classic BMW cone of light down-road but I'd like it to be slightly more intense. I did wear a pair of glasses thinking that was the issue and while the clarity was there, I'd still like to have a stronger flood if light. I think the issue is that with my wife's car, when the high beams are on the low beams are also on so there is just plenty of illumination. I'm weary of installing auxillary driving lights but Ilm looking for something...maybe not something quite like this,

but you get the idea.

This past weekend,I took a drive north where I could open her up a bit more...4th and 5th gear in the sweet spot vs. 3rd and 4th and I just need a more light if it's possible...but Idont really want to have the car look like a rally car if you kn ow what I mean. Please share your thoughts.

Oh...also, I did recondition the lenses and that helped....during this process I also noticed that many of the wire sheaths ( headlight wire plastic coating) is becoming brittle which tells me that the wires have basically over heated in the cars 13 years...perhaps the best solution is going to be replacing the headlamps altogether and if so, what should I bee looking at? The car is a 2007 E60 with adaptive halogens...maybe I need to upgrade to HID Xenon projectors?...agin, your thoughts.

twh

I might be mistaken, but I don't think adaptive halogens was a thing. You may have the adaptive xenon's that have been switched over to LED????? I recently put in new xenon bulbs, the NightBreaker version. They do seem to throw more light.

donpb

It might be cheaper to get glasses, or polarized ones helped me. I wear glasses at night for clarity, not because things are too dark though. If you do have xenons, they should be plenty bright.

twh

My 2006 530xi with Adaptive Xenon's had the original bulbs. Just replaced with these: D1S - OSRAM XENARC 66140XNL NIGHT BREAKER LASER HID BULBS