Headlamp question???

[marsie]

pulled onto the drive tonight with high beam on and noticed that only my outer headlights were lit. Flashed the high beam on and off but still only the outer lamps working??? :blink:

The lower fog lamps act as cornering lamps so when do the inner lamps work if at all? I assumed they would be high beam like my range rover/discovery was
Thanks
Paul

[Spandex]

Based on how most bmw bi-xenon lights work (I’ve not actually looked at the x5 to see if they’re the same though), the outer lights will be high and low beam (both using the same xenon lamp, with a mechanical shutter to change the beam pattern) and the inners will be ‘flash to pass’ - i.e. they will only activate when you pull the stalk back to flash the lights. This is because xenons don’t really ignite fast enough to use for flashing, and doing so would also shorten their lifespan.

[NehalX5]

Good answer but not quite. Inners are for show, there is a bulb within it but it mounts the bulb in a way to shine it around the two halo lights of the headlight unit itself. It's either a halogen bulb for pre LCI and a LED bulb for LCI in this mount, and it's the bulb you can change within the headlight.

Low and High Beam are both in the outer bulb, even for flashing people. There is simply a shutter which moves up and down to block beam. The shutter is down for low beam and up for high beam, you can physically hear it move with the engine off, ignition on and headlights on. I can say this for pre LCI xenons, but not sure about LCI.

[lezmtaylor]

The E53 X5 had separate main beam and dipped lights/bulbs.
If you had xenons fitted at the factory only the dipped were xenons, many of us have converted the halogen main beam to xenon as well as the dipped, afar better arrangement and brilliant illumination at night.
Is there any way you could do a similar conversion ?

Lez

[X5Sport]

The inboard lamp on the E70 is purely cosmetic and simply maintains the BMW Corprate look. 

It used to house the angel eye components (light pipes) but that is all.  Many BMWs are now like this and AFAIK only the E70/E71 equipped with the factory LED lighting has both units as actual lamps.

And yes IMHO it is a waste considering everything is there other than a lamp mount.

[Spandex]

[quote="NehalX5"]
Good answer but not quite.[/quote]
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that it wasn’t a good answer, because it was wrong...