DA8

Anyone know what this lever does? While changing my HID bulbs I found it. It manually moves something in the headlight, but I don't know what. Something in front of the high beam flappers moves when you push it in and it seems to lock in an in and out position. I thought it could potentially lock the high beam flapper open, but the headlight flappers don't move when you move it. It was in the down position when I opened up the HID area.Lever.pdf

DA8

Also, anyone know how to get the turn signal lights out? I tried to turn them and they would not move. It is really hard to get your hand in there to get any leverage. It is also really hard to get a tool in there to twist them. I did not want to do anything that would break them so I didn't over do it because I didn't know what the proper proceedure was. Do you twist the black part counterclockwise?

Mister Bally

I don't recall seeing that lever on my '04. Does your '05 have the dynamic headlights that move as you steer? If so maybe that's what that's for. Otherwise, maybe mine have that and I didn't notice them. It makes sens that ti would have something to do with the shutter/flaps as something has to move them during power up, leveling changes as well as high beam use in the North American vehicle settings.

As for the turn lamp bulb sockets, they are just pressed in with spring loading (similar to Tinnerman Clips) Just rock and twist slightly and pull. Perhaps some moisture is holding yours in firmly. If ione is burnt out, it needs to be reeplaced so pull harder until it comes out.

Note that parking light (not turn signal) sockets need to be twisted to unlock. Those wacky Germans make you rotate the socket clockwise to disengage. Very nice.

Good luck.

DA8

My 05 does have the dynamic headlights. That is what the motor is for shown as a black round thing with 4 wires going to it in the bottom left portion of the photo.

I don't think that is what the lever is for; I think the motor moves the whole HID assembly. I think the lever has something to do with the flaps as it moves a small bar in front of them. My leading theory is that it changes the standard opening of the head lamps. I replaced the one left HID and now the left HID has a little wider spread (and higher) than the right one which I have not touched. I am not certain that I put the lever back in the original position after I moved it around a bunch. I left it in the down position. I'll take apart the right side to replace the other HID this weekend and see what position the right one is in.

Here is why I think it might change the spread of the light. In USA and CAN modes the HID acts as high and low beam with the switching of the flaps and the H7 halogen bulb on the inside light set next to the parking light is only used for flashing. In ROW mode the halogen is used for high beam and the HID is only used for low beam. My theory is that when the cars leave the factory if the car is to be set in ROW mode this lever is moved to the position with a wider spread for the low beams. If that is true then a great mod would be to change to ROW for the use of the much brighter halogen brights and move the lever for a wider spread of the HID low beams. At least that is my theory. I'll test it more this weekend when I tear into them again.

BTW I also followed the parking light LED swap thread and have purchased some 9 LED blue 194 bulbs from autolumination.com. I got the ones that have the "Canbus Bulb-Out Warning Cancellation Chip." Hope they work. I am concerned that the heat produced from these LEDs could damage the housing. But I am hoping they will be much brighter. I chose 4300K HIDs that are more white than blue. And I got the blue 9 LED parking bulb so I will have the brightest white lights with a blue accent. Note for people interested in lights, when you go with the more blue (higher K rating) HIDs you lose some amount of lumens (brightness). That is why I stuck with the 4300K.

mishar

That lever is probably for focusing. Projection should be focused in order to perform, not wide.

Halogen lights are used as high beams in Canada. HID's too, but they are overpowered by halogens.

jakematic

Searched all morning through the Bentley, online parts books, even Russian copies of ETKA.
Can't find any reference to that lever.

It did show up in one diagram in the Bentley, but there was no discussion of it.

As Mister Bally said, it seem to me it has something to do with leveling or adjustment.

Sorry I couldn't find more info. Let us know if you figure it out.

MP4.2+6.0

I suspect it is a manual headlight beam throw/height adjuster. I fitted Euro style headlights to my old C3 (85 5000) in the late 80's. The Euro style lights back then had a sharp upper beam cut off coupled w/ brighter Euro halogen bulbs, unlike the U.S. design lights that were tightly regulated at the time w/ poor beam patterns. In turn, the Euro lights required a manual beam control to avoid blinding oncoming drivers if the car was heavily loaded. I think this was done via cable control to the drivers compartment. I rented a few small cars over the years in Europe and found such a control. The lever at the headlight end on the C3 Euro lights looked like the one in your picture. Europe at least used to have a separate "City" light setting too that activated a separate low wattage bulb just to illuminate the headlight housing; some larger cities required dimmed lights. Haven't heard of that in years, but maybe they somehow built a dimming function into the lever you have encountered.

On my C3 where it was a US retrofit, I fashioned a thick wire connector to the lever and ran it up to a hole in the sheet metal above the headlights. Used it a few times when I loaded the car heavily--5 passengers and a (huge) trunk full of luggage--and the back end would droop down. Separately I put a low wattage bulb into the City socket and wired it to the parking lights. This old manual ride height adjustment concept is seemingly not relevant though on a D3 w/ air suspension, headlight control and ride height sensors, that should deal w/ the variable loads anyway. Could be it still has a function in Europe though if used on a steel suspension car w/ the same headlight unit. My 2004 Sienna minivan actually had an manually controlled motorized adjustment like this with HID's, via a dial on the dashboard; I was dubious it was really U.S. compliant which I thought requires automatic adjustment w/ HID fitments.

Meanwhile, if you can move the lever with the lights on (either directly or with a stiff wire or tool) and projecting against a wall or garage door, you'll have your answer. That's what I did to first confirm the function back on my C3 Euro units.

s4master1

2 things,
1 you do not have dynamic headlights, the motor is there for level adjustment during acceleration and braking, all XENON headlights equipped cars are required to have level sensors in the front and rear suspension, when accelerating the front of the car goes up and during braking goes down, there's a headlight control unit that adjust accordingly.
Dynamic does that plus directing the beams related to steering angle.
2 the lever you see there is due to the fact those lenses are for BI-XENON headlights, either they were retrofitted to your car or and most likely your car was already built when bi xenons start production.
on bi-xenon lights only one bulb is used for low and high beams, moving that flap makes the difference between the two.

DA8

s4master1 is right; these are not true dynamic headlights. They do not pivot left-right. That explains why I could not notice a difference when going around corners. The ones that pivot left-right have a left-right pivot point that these do not have. I don’t know where I got that idea, but I checked my dealer sticker and it just says BI-XEON, not dynamic.

Anyway, I have solved the original question. Searching around the internet, I find that this is actually a common question for these type of lights in Europe. The lever controls the dip pattern for driving on the right or left side of the road as in EU or UK. In later models this is adjusted with VAG-COM. I found a D2 thread that offered instructions that should be applicable for the D3 too. I was unable to locate the information in the Bentley manual.

Basically the instruction is this,

For Left headlight
Lever down = driving on right
Lever up = driving on left

For right headlight
Lever down = driving on left
Lever up = driving on right

As I stated, the lever does not affect the flaps that control the hi-low beam. It operates something in front of them that I found out is the dip pattern.

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/showthread.php?t=816

Mister Bally

Cool to know.... so, both levers up equals greater low beam distance.... I know, illegal and immoral.