I am hoping someone can give me some guidance. First of all the car is a E90 2010 335D with 69k CPO. My right headlight when placed on high beam flickers and winks and then goes to low beam and will flicker back and forth. I brought it in for warranty work and they found no fault code, replace the bulb, a module and re programmed the car. N/C - YAY!!! But it didn't work. Now they tell me it MAY be the other module for the headlight which is 800 dollars, programmed to the car, not reusable or interchangeable with the left side AND IT MAY NOT WORK. WHAT??? Pay 800 for a car specific item not covered under CPO through trial and error. Who does that? And if that doesn't work, then a headlight for 2000 dollars is the next T&E step. Also NOT cpo covered. Anyone have a hint to solve this. I have contacted NA but waiting to hear back. Thx Gene
I am sorry I didn't mention that. Yes Xenon auto leveling HL. The auto leveling works fine. The dealer suggested running the highbeams to capture a fault code. But they don't stay on high when I shut off and restart the car. And of course the high works on the left so I blind people if I continuously drive on HB to have the system do a check, when ever that is?
Does the headlight do this all the time or only intermittently? When you say the light flickers do you mean the whole headlight flickers or just between high and low?
What happens is I put on the high beams at the stalk and the left goes to high beam. The right sometimes goes up to high beam sometimes stays low and will erratically go up and down to low and high and in an irregular fashion. It can happen with pretty much regularity but is intermittent in its pattern. Imagine a loose ground on a light bulb and you jiggle the wire.. Sometimes stays lit ( highbeam). sometimes out (low beam) and will flicker ( or is flutter a better word) on and off high beam usually settling onto low beam. I always thought the headlight had a "blinder" that the bulb was always on high beam but the blinder or shutter comes down to block the upper level beams ( like a baseball cap or visor blocking the sun). It is like someone trying to cover your eyes and you don't want them to do so.Your eyesight is the same just your vision is blinded. That shutter cuts in and out when it is on high beam. Nothing irregular happens on low beam. I have no warning lights, the check control shows nothing. The light itself ( the bulb strength) seems consistent and unwaivering raising my doubts of a bad bulb. Now I went out started the car and put on the high beams and the right ( bad ) side stayed on low beam. I reached behind the light and jiggle wires, took a screwdriver and tapped the modules and nothing. However when I tapped the headlight lens ( clear area ) the light would go up to high beam for a split second like the impact made it go up but immediately goes back down. Like to the length of time the impact lasts. a millisecond even. Then i reached behind the light and tried to go down even farther to reach like below the headlight unit and alittle something happened but I can't duplicate. It was in the same fashion of tapping the lens but shorter. Maybe it was a rear impact type event. Again could not reproduce, but it flickered to high beam but really short. I tapped and tapped with the screwdriver and my fingers and no luck. But when I went to the front clear lens could do it each time. I am not sure if I am causing the autolevel to reset with the tapping. The whole time the strength of the bulb stayed consistent ( light output)
From what it sounds like a headlight is most likely the issue. I would suggest swapping headlights from side to side and see if the issue follows the headlight or stays on the same side. That way you will know if it is a module called the FRM or the wiring or the ground instead of just throwing money at the problem.
I will try that. Thanks so much for the help. I am tired of blinding people driving with my highbeams on (or at least the left one) to capture a code. I have to go back for an oil change and for the dealer to RE-repair a leaking headlight washer ( on the left side, not the bad one) and to fix a "birdie in my fan" issue (why do all BMWs fans chirp and sing at 60k???). Maybe I will suggest that to them after I try it and see what they say. Knowing the answer will be interesting when they tell me its both or the higher price part... Thx again
