High beams a hassle on 2006 525xi
 

Hello everyone,
I have had this ongoing issue with my high beams since I bought this vehicle last summer. Pushing the lever forward illuminates the high beam icon on the dash and nothing more. When I pull back on the lever the same icon illuminates and I get high beams. The problem is, to keep the high beams on, I have to continue holding the lever back.

In case this might be helpful to know, the car has been wrecked in the front prior to my purchasing it. Also, there is quite a bit of moisture in the driver side headlight. By all appearances it looks good but perhaps something was wired wrong or improperly installed to be causing me to have to hold back the lever to keep the high beams activated?

Any guidance is appreciated. As you can imagine it gets annoying to have to hold the lever back. I have even wedged a piece of foam between the dash and the lever for long trips!

^ if it's anything like my E53s, pre-LCI E60s may have a halogen inner lamp that's the "flash to pass", and have a shutter on the outer HID lamp that pops up for true high beams. I can't say for sure as mine's a LCI model that uses HID for "flash to pass" as well as high beam.

I figured that the high beam was on because when I pull back the lever, it's much brighter (and the high beam icon is illuminated). I will have to check it again to determine if the "outer" hi/lows are working. It's a v6. Thanks.

Thanks for the breakdown because I didn't know any of that. I just knew what I described above and while I was unaware of how to get "normal" operation , I DID know what I had was not it!

I always check lighting action by having someone use the controls and me observing from the outside of the car the actions or non-actions of the lights I would also check to see if your 6 cylinders are in a V configuration. BMW doesn't make V sixes and I don't think that they ever have.

I check lights by pulling up to a shop window, then toggle the various levers and switches to see what's happening. On the LCI, when you steer left or right of center, the inner lamp comes on for the respective side to provide cornering assistance, and the HID swivels to the same side as the cornering lamp that comes on. Nifty stuff.

OP: do yourself a favour and pull up to a shop window and watch what the lights do when you pull/push the switch.

Great minds think alike..lol
ty

I re-checked the headlights using the local restaurant's large front windows and first thing I confirmed was that the drivers side light is less bright than the passenger side. I had noticed earlier that, with the hood up, the housing was quite different on the passenger side. With other non-bmw's I have owned, they were at least similar in appearance. I wonder if that's normal for bmw''s? I suspect the passenger side is newer because of the wreck.

Otherwise, with the headlights on "auto," the lights "on" were the outside lights. When I pushed the lever, the inside lights were barely illuminated and the outside lights remained on. When i pull back on the lever once, the inside lights go out and outside lights stay on. When I release and pull back again the inside lights are illuminated (as long as i keep holding the lever back) and the outside lights stay on throughout.

Relating to what I was saying in the first paragraph, earlier today on the drivers side headlight, I pulled the large rubber "cap" off the inside light and then the smaller plastic cap off the outer light as well which took care of the moisture inside. I noted the difference on the passenger side headlight was that there are two large plastic caps to access the outer and inner lights each. No moisture on that side.
Thoughts?
Ty!

I just caught this! My mistake as the last 2 vehicles I had were v6's. The last one which I still have was my exclusive driver the last 15 yrs. Old habits die hard :)

Great information. I have the day off tomorrow so I will spend some time on this. Thanks!