I read a couple of posts about this but did not get an idea if it can be done or not? I would like to raise the cutoff up a it.

Blazeone,

Welcome, and good to see another Houstonian!

Shoot me an email, ill help you with the [email protected]

TXSJaybird wrote:Blazeone,

Welcome, and good to see another Houstonian!

Shoot me an email, ill help you with the [email protected]

Jay, can you also please post the answer here? It would be good for other members too!

Z

Z, would love to, however its a long detailed thread from another forum....

Perhaps you can summarize it into concise instructions?

Headlight height from another forum:

Some dealers will adjust them. You can ask the dealer to raise them 1 or 2 inches (as measured at the location where they typically measure them, some distance away from the car).   I've raised them myself, and I'm quite happy with them.   If you open the hood, and remove the plastic covers on each side of the engine, (there are clips that release when you pull the covers up) you'll see a large silver cog wheel right up against the headlight casing, on each side. Next to each cog wheel is a hole where you can insert, pointing straight down, a medium to large phillips head screw driver. You'll need to raise both sides, and typically the right side can be a little higher, since it's less prone to blind an oncoming driver. (You're tying to balance your visibility and the effect on other drivers.)   Turning counter clockwise raises the beams. With a magic marker, make a mark on the big cog wheel, and watch it turn (as you watch the headlights raise on a wall about 6 feet away from your car.) Most people need to turn the large cog wheel about 1.25 to 2 full rotations. One person was happy only after 4 complete rotations. Try 1.5 rotations, see how you like it when driving, and go from there. How far away from the cog wheel is the screw driver adjustment hole?It's touching it. It's a vertical cylindrical hole (missing a vertical strip, along it's full length, on the side), and pointing straight down. If you look directly into it, you'll see a second set of teeth that would be turned by the phillips head. (The second set of teeth are not the teeth that you initially see on the cog wheel, but are actually another part of the cog wheel as well)   Note that the high beams go up when the low beams go up, but there's a place with a decent balance. I haven't yet heard of a way to adjust them independently.

Thanks, blackhorse!

Z

Okay, I have to ask the dumb question that I forgot to ask earlier that is sorta related: do the 2006 M35/M45's have the head light level adjusters in the driver's cockpit?

My 2003 M45 has this rotary three (or four?) position switch that allows the lights to be lowered when there is a load in the rear seat or trunk car. Once the level is set higher from within the engine compartment (the original question in this thread), you can still use this switch to lower the lights as needed ... right?

Z

i'm not aware of such a switch on the '06's.

blackhorse wrote:i'm not aware of such a switch on the '06's.

Thanks for the info! I did a bit of research and found some additional details.

Apparently, the M45 has an option called the Adaptive Front lighting System (or AFS) that does this automatically. I am not sure which models have this feature.

According to the 2006 M45 Owners Manual (page 2-29 and 2-30), when engaged (the button is on the left of the steering column), it "adjusts the headlight to a proper axis automatically, depending on the number of occupants in the vehicle, the load the vehicle is carrying and the road conditions."

So, I hope that the manual corrections talked about in this thread do not affect that feature too much. I think it would be fine ... my guess is that when properly adjusted using the screw described, further auto-levelling of the lights is handled by the AFS, if the car has it!

Z