Auto High-Beam

Hi everyone, first time Bimmer owner, and first time posting.

I've had my 2013 X3 28i for a couple of months now and am still looking for excuses to drive enough to learn everything One thing I'm unclear on is auto-high beam.

Since I've been doing mostly city driving, I haven't had much of a chance to check it out. I can't put my fingers on my invoice quickly to confirm, but I had assumed that auto-high beam was part of my vehicle (Canada, with Technology, Premium and Executive Packages, and Bi-Xenon lights.) The other night I was finally doing some night highway driving, and didn't notice any high-low beam changes. I have the headlamp switch on Auto, but do I need to do anything else? Do I need to have it manually set to high beam by pushing the stalk forward?

I did find out the camera for sensing oncoming lights is on the back of the rearview mirror, and my parking card might have been blocking it. I've removed that, but haven't been out in the country since.

Will the beam changes be abrupt like normal high to low to high, or is it more subtle by re-aiming the beams?

Thanks for your help, everyone, I've already learned a great deal by lurking in this forum.

caz

I do not have the auto hi beam feature, but from reading the manual I see that if you do there should be two buttons on the end of the turn signal stalk. One toggles the computer display in the center of the dash to show date, fuel economy, distance to empty, etc. I think everyone has that. The other, lower one turns on the headlight assistant.

Hmmm. Had remembered seeing something about that somewhere, but just went to check again and definitely just the one button on the stalk. Maybe I don't have the feature, anyone know what package(s) auto high-beam comes with or its just a standalone option? I thought it was with all xenons.

caz

In the US, it comes with the Driver's Assistance package. Used to be a stand alone option in 2011. Don't know about Canada.

I've been pricing out a '13 x28 and didn't see a Driver Assistance package among the Canadian options. Would be interesting if you did have the option.

I don't think the Highbeam Assistant is available in Canada.

I cannot say whether the option is available in Canada, but what I can confirm is that if you have the option, you have two buttons on the end of the indicator stalk, and you have to enable it whenever you want to use it, which then gives you an indicator in the instrument cluster to show it is active. I have found it to be very good the few times I have been able to use it. When it switches between high beams and low beams you get exactly the same effect like you would when switching it manually with the stalk, it just does it automatically. It also gets switched off automatically if you select low or high beams using the indicator stalk. I can also tell you that the camera for this feature is a separate section below the normal rear view mirror piece which has the rain and light activation sensors. I have attached a picture, not sure if you have the bottom piece if you do not have High-Beam Assist.

Thanks, that clears it up. Given I don't have the second button on the stalk, or that extra camera in your photo, looks like I am non-auto.

Since I'm old enough to remember fishing around for the high-low button on the floor by my left foot it's hardly a big enough problem for me to get depressed about.

caz

In 2012 this was a stand alone option. It is definitely worth the $250. it works fantastic. I wish that it could be coded that you don't always have to activate it. Or give me an option in the iDrive menu.

I may be wrong, but I thought it was the upper of the two buttons on the turn stalk that controls the auto high beams.

Again, I may have it backwards.

Richard

Allow me to correct myself. I did have it backwards.

It's the lower button on the turn stalk that turns the automatic high beam feature on and off.

My error.

Richard