Forward this video to the 55 minute mark and watch the next 4 or 5 minutes. The shots of how poor the BMW 3-series lights are compared to the Prius V is clear. The discussion on issues and costs is short but informative.

https://youtu.be/Jo8sTGHswhU

 

https://www.s2ki.com/s2000/topic/114...t-performance/

 

I've got, in order,
S2000 xenon low beam and halogen high: love the low beams hate the high beams.
my old e430 had the same set up. similar emotion. we had to do the 3m kit to clean it up which helped a lot.
The S430 has bixenon set up. I loved these lights that is until I got my E550 and the GL550.
Both of those have a steerable bixenon. Hello daytime.
I haven't had this kind of night driving experience since my Cibie 150 driving spots.

One of the downsides of going away from the good old standard lamp sizes is that you can;t really replace them.
It used to be the very first thing I did when I bought a car was to swap out the headlights for proper aftermarket lights.
Now you're pretty much stuck with what the manufacturer put in and they are not cheap.
2 years ago when my son totaled the older GL, headlights quickly pushed it over the edge.
If I recall correctly it was almost 5k by themselves.

 

Good link. I found it surprising as did the researchers that BMW and Benz did so bad. That's a helluva difference in distances. Reminds me of the time I swapped out old conventional headlights in my MG for halogen and a heavy duty headlight harness to handle the extra draw. The difference was Day and Night with the upgrade. Seems like new car manufacturers are two busy trying for looks over function.

 

Has anyone ever explicitly tested a car at night to verify headlight performance.
I usually do.

Granted the headlights in my cars are now 6 or 7 model years old and a lot of things may have changed
but I can unequivocally state the MB headlights I have are awesome.

 

Clearly the Model makes a big difference even with the same manufacturer.

This came from the reporter, "The LED headlights in the top trim level Toyota Prius V — the only one of 31 models tested to get the "good" rating — were able to illuminate a straight roadway sufficiently to see a pedestrian, bicyclist or obstacle up to 387 feet ahead. At that distance, the vehicle could be traveling up to 70 mph and still have time to stop.
But halogen headlights in the BMW 3 series, the worst-rated ones, were able to illuminate only 128 feet ahead. At that distance, the vehicle couldn't be traveling at more than 35 mph and still have time to stop, according to the study.
That's important because of the more than 32,000 traffic deaths last year, about half happened at night or during dawn and dusk when visibility is lower.
The reason for the big performance gap is that there's a lot more to how well headlights help drivers see than merely the brightness of the bulb or even what type of bulb is used, said David Zuby, the institute's executive vice president and chief researcher.
"We found the same light bulb, depending upon what reflector or lens it's paired with and how it's mounted on the vehicle, can give you very different visibility down the road," he said.
It gets more complicated. Consumers can't buy a more expensive model or add an expensive technology package and necessarily expect to get better headlights, the report said. The halogen headlights in the economically priced base model 4-door Honda Accord, for example, earned an acceptable rating while halogen and LED headlights in two pricier Mercedes-Benz models were rated poor."

So they are not all wonderful.

 

As long as we are on the subject, I can say I never liked the headlights at night in the S2000. Never, from day one.

 

Never.
Levi

 

I've always liked them, though I don't do a lot of driving in the dark.
Levi

 

I own a 2012 BMW X3 and have had no issues with the headlights. We have some very dark roads where I live and the lights are fine.