New BMW SUV high beams?

[N8N]

Was driving to work this morning in my old GTI and had a driver come up behind me in a newer BMW SUV, I assume X-something, with PAINFULLY bright high beams on. Thing is, it was the typical BMW front end with four apparent lights but only the outer two were on. Is this like my old E92 where they don't work like you expect but the outers are both low and high beams and the inners are cornering lights? This one appeared to be LED not HID though. Or is this just a grossly defective lighting system? I don't usually expect lights this bad from German manufacturers. (the headlights on the old Corrado G60 being a notable exception, I think they were punishing us for not allowing headlights meeting the same standards that 90% of the ROW uses)

 

[EJR]

Likely bad aim. That's all.

 

[John_Galt]

^^^Aim, or perhaps a bunch of junk in the trunk, resulting in a squat.

 

[billybb]

Might be still working out the kinks with adaptive high beams on the US models.

Pretty much all German cars and most of the luxury Japanese models made in the last several years have had adaptive highbeams outside the US but it was just recently allowed there. I wonder if they're rolling them out now. They're pretty cool.

I'm not talking about automatic high beams, the kind that turn off when they see another car, theyre "adaptive" highbeams. You never need to touch them. You have your highbeams on 24/7 technically.

There's dozens of LEDs that make up headlights and the highbeams, and a sensor up front, so the car turns on and off just the LEDs that are the part of the high beam that point right at other cars. So if you're driving behind somebody your highbeams are still full on, illuminating the area to both sides of the car in front of you, but the LEDs that would be pointing directly at them are switched off. And if a car starts coming the other direction it'll switch those on and off accordingly. So you always have highbeams and they just like bend around other cars. When it works it's awesome. It's been pretty standard in Europe for awhile. And in the day it just turns them off obviously. And if it senses youre in the city or on a highway it turns them off. They just come on when it knows you're on a country road at night.

 

[Toulouse42]

Bad aim maybe. Certainly my car, now 3 years old, came with badly adjusted LED lights. However, IMHO all LED lights look very bright to my eyes and they can't all be maladjusted can they? The thing is that unless you live in Florida, everywhere has hills, traffic "calming" measures etc that cause the beams to bounce up and down all the time. I still prefer my old halogens.

 

[och]

To the best of my knowledge, older BMWs with HIDs do not use the inner projectors, they are only for the "angel eye" ring light. The outer projects do high/low functions.

The newer ones are LED, and they use both inner and outer projects, and I believe both projectors do both high and low. The more expensive models with adaptive LEDs even have the capacity to do the "matrix" high beam function, although it was illegal in the US until late year, so very few BMWs have it enabled.

And the most expensive ones also have laser high beam in addition to the LED, it shoots an additional beam out of the inner projector at highway speed.

 

[divine]

It looks like bad design to me. They've been banking on their donut headlight for too many years, now they feel like they need to keep it. It doesn't work well with LED, but they're doing it anyways.

 

[yellow]

1st BMW Hid projectors had that, too.
Way too small middle opening and thus blinding effect on oncoming traffic.
Was changed (wider lenses) because of massive critique.

Maybe now they are starting same with led models?

 

[och]

Some BMWs even have laser high beam assist, as well as adoptive LED. They generally dont cause glare, unless the car was in a crash and the body shop did not alight the headlight right during repair.

 

[theory816]

Probably just had his highbeams on.

 

[alpg88]

high beams are always aimed higher, and always blinding to other drivers, new leds are even more so. nothing surprising it blinded you, any car would. not to mention you were driving a small car with low driver position, and bmw X is a taller suv. The driver was an a hole, some people drive with high on purpose to annoy/intimidate cars in front and make them move away, clearing the line for them. It is not a headlight issue but a human issue

 

[theory816]

high beams are always aimed higher, and always blinding to other drivers, new leds are even more so. nothing surprising it blinded you, any car would. not to mention you were driving a small car with low driver position, and bmw X is a taller suv. The driver was an a hole, some people drive with high on purpose to annoy/intimidate cars in front and make them move away, clearing the line for them. It is not a headlight issue but a human issue

I doubt he was trying to intimidate. Even the brassest driver will not use their highbeams. I find that people who use highbeams accidentally turn them on.

 

[alpg88]

Even the brassest driver will not use their highbeams.

Of course they do, i see it everyday. I know people who never shut their high beams, some even adjust one light so it is aimed high for that reason, never underestimate stupidity and maliciousness of people.

 

[theory816]

Of course they do, i see it everyday. I know people who never shut their high beams, some even adjust one light so it is aimed high for that reason, never underestimate stupidity and maliciousness of people.

Well I drive almost every day and rarely see people use their highbeams. Most people do not like to use their highbeams.

 

[alpg88]

Well i drive everyday, and i see it, of course it is not very common, but not rare either,

 

[N8N]

I doubt he was trying to intimidate. Even the brassest driver will not use their highbeams. I find that people who use highbeams accidentally turn them on.

You have never been to MD. I am guesstimating that 10% of all drivers use their high beams at all times after dark. Either they're too stupid to be allowed to drive or they are in fact trying to intimidate.

 

[EJR]

A lot of vehicles have auto high-beam assist. The sensors in some of these vehicles aren't really that good to begin with so they don't/can't reliably shut off the HB soon enough when oncoming traffic is coming. This *could* be one of the reasons.

My wife drives a 2019 Durango RT with factory HID lamps and auto high beams. She mentioned to me a few weeks ago that she noticed she gets flashed every so often. I know its not the aim because I aimed them correctly with my optical aimer. After driving it few times I noticed that the high beams were not shutting off quick enough as soon as a oncoming vehicle was in sight. This delay would cause the HBs to be glaring for several seconds before it decided to turn them off or when I manually turned them off.

 

[alpg88]

I have AHB in my passport, they do have a slight delay, but they wouldn't be constantly on when there is any lighting front of the car, whether a tail lights, headlights or a light pole. I had 1988 T bird with AHB as well, it worked flawlessly.
Some people would drive with HB all the time if a low beam on one side is out, they do it so they would not get pulled over, a friend of mine did that for months, till his HB burned out too, so he had to replace bulbs, but he had no intention to replace low beam bulb as long as his HB were on, however his headlights were so yellowed/hazed his high beams would not blind anyone even when looking directly into it.

 

[jaycee88]

Well I drive almost every day and rarely see people use their highbeams. Most people do not like to use their highbeams.

Do you live in/near a city?

Where I am, out in the boonies and once traffic starts getting light, high beam use is the norm, not the exception. Not just to simply see the road, but good luck seeing and having enough time to avoid animals using just your low beams if you're going any faster than ~30mph.

 

[theory816]

Do you live in/near a city?

Where I am, out in the boonies and once traffic starts getting light, high beam use is the norm, not the exception. Not just to simply see the road, but good luck seeing and having enough time to avoid animals using just your low beams if you're going any faster than ~30mph.

I live in the suburbs/city. But yeah I understand if they are used out in the outer skirts but even then I rarely see people use it when I was out there. Lol.