I have had my MCS for about a month now and I am trying to figure out if my headlights our out of alignment or if they are supposed to be the way that they are. I have never had Xenon lights before so it is taking me a while to get used to the sharp cutoff that they provide, but now that I have dad it a while I want to make sure that they are working correctly.

At night on the road the left headlight seems to point very slightly to the right and maybe slightly downward compared to the alignment of the right headlight. When I put them on a wall and check the alignment it seems to be correct until I back away to the point where the light focuses on the ground. I looked at the lamps in the housing of the healight assembly and they seem to confirm that this is the case. I also compared it to a couple on the lot a the dealership and they appeared the same.

So, does anyone else notice this and do you think it is a problem? I did bring it in to the dealership to have them check it, but they said it is normal. Like I said earlier I have never had xenon's before, so I don't know what is normal.

Any replies are appreciated.

 

I don't have my MINI yet, so I can't tell you if mine does it or not. But, I heard that (some) cars do this because of the oncoming traffic. It's to keep the headlight that faces oncoming traffic from shining in their eyes. Maybe when the car is sitting still the headlights level out, and this only works when the car is moving.

 

Sounds right, the left headlight is aimed so as not to blind oncoming traffic.

Visibility should be great though, and not cut off too short. Sometimes they can be aimed too low so if you think you are not seeing far enough the service dept should check it for you with the tools/guidelines they have available to them.

I had the same concern with another car with self leveling xenons and it did turn out to be low and was made right by service. (IMHO it is best to have service do it vs DIY since it seems that oftentimes people aim them too high when tinkering themselves and then they are really blinding..)

 

Thanks for the responses. I did have service check it out and they told me that they couldn't find anything wrong. I was a little concerned because "couldn't find anything wrong," and "this is by design" are two different things.

I agree about the oncoming traffic and it makes sense. Not having Xenon's before I didn't know if this was expected or not. I don't have any problems with the visiability at all. As a matter of fact I hate to drive my wifes car at night now because I feel like the halogens deliver poor visibility after driving mine.

 

Zenon lights have very definite patterns. Find a smooth, flat, dark stretch, like a parking lot. The left beam should end closer to the car, in an almost straight cut-off, and be slightly to the right. The right beam should project further out and look more pointed, slightly to the right. The effect is like a shadow of a church with a steeple.

 

Another thing is that the right beam will project more light upwards (a requirement to light up road signs) and the left beam will spread a bit of light out low and to the left. You might see that and think your left beam is misaligned, but that's normal.

The cutoff is actually farther out than what you'd see with halogens, too, so you're not losing anything, but you might think "dang, these lights cut off so quick, I can't see beyond it", but you wouldn't see that area with (properly aligned) halogens either.

FINALLY after 20 minutes of searching on the web I found some diagrams that illustrate this.

http://e46fanatics.com/features/jlev...s/image004.jpg
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a1...XEN/text08.gif
http://www.xenon-light.at/Images/BEL...table_sm10.jpg

Two of these are meant to help sell retrofit kits, which are not (to my knowledge) legal in the US, and I'm not in any way recommending retrofits. They're Not a Good Idea.

 

Great post, I was worried about the same thing (except mine's the other way round as I'm in the UK - right headlight doesn't project as far as the left). Thought they were out of alignment!

Breathes a huge sigh of relief