When driving over rough roads, I've noticed that the headlights (HID's) seem to vibrate an aweful lot. You can see the reflection on the roadway. I've had several cars with HID's and never seen this before. Kinda makes the car seem cheap. Is this common or something I should take the car in for?

 

I've never noticed that....

I've driven a ton of cars with xenons and they all quiver a "little" over extremely bad roads, but nothing that noticeable. My MCS xenons don't seem any different.

 

It's the sharp cutoff of the beam that makes the shaking visible and exaggerates the effect. Does the MINI have a sharper cutoff than the HID's in your other cars?

 

Just a tiiiiny bit of "quivering" as DustinDallas put it, might want to investigate the shaking.

 

What kind of "shaking" are we talking about here?

Slight quiver?
-or-
Shakey-like-crazy-like-1985-Honda-Motorcycle?

 

Mine shake depending on the road condition. Expected. I love 'em. The deer are much more easily spotted before I hit them too...........

 

If my xenons shake, it can't be very much because I don't notice it

 

Could it be the "self-leveling" trying to keep up with changing conditions?

 

Must be the lights being part of the bonnet...the R56 will fix that.

 

Mine quivers slightly on the dirt roads I tend to drive on. Nothing too bad, just a little 'different' than vehicles with normal headlights.

First vehicle w/ HIDs I've ever driven was a 2004 Range Rover. The headlights on that thing had the exact same slight quiver on rough roads.

Might have something to do with the auto leveling system in the headlights. At any rate, I love my Xenons, despite being the pre-2005-facelift kind. I can see soooo much more w/ these lights than any other non HID vehicle I've driven. So I'll put up with the headlight quivering any day.

 

 

I've seen lights that weren't solidly mounted before, and whether from a collision or improper mounting (auxiliary lights), they shake something terrible + continuously even when the road is smooth.

OTOH the cutoff of the xenons on the MINI just sharply "bounce" exactly like how lights in other stiffly sprung, short wheelbase cars do. It just provides a visual indicator of how poorly the car rides

Watch the pattern of other cars' lights, particularly those that have been excessively lowered or just have extremely short wheelbases (eg Samurai) and you will see the same motion. It's from the whole car pitching fore and aft.