Wow, this was a PITA!

[ilya]

just spent 3 horus working on the low beam headlight on the driver side.
my friend's dad ran into it a few months ago, and i just got around to replacing it.
i ordered it from BMA. i believe around $100, which wasn't bad (they paid for it anyways).
anyways. first of all, taking the grill off was a pain of its own. those clips were hard to find, took me like 20 minutes.
next, taking the whole assembley out was hard because of the location of some of the screws. i think BMW expects you to take the car apart before working on anything under the hood!
finally, reusing the adjustment "screws" (the 3 that you turn to adjust the headlights' level). there was absolutely NO way i could reuse them from the old light without actually cutting the plastic on the old lamp. i used a saw, and just simply cut through it to take those things out. didn't wnat to do that, but had to.
finally, 3 hoursl ater the headlight was in. it is a little bit lower than the passenger side one, so ill have to readjust it tomorrow.

overall, this was a pain in the ass, but definately a good experience. i learned a lot about the trim of the car, and at least know how to work with the headlights if i have o do that again.

[KenB]

When I bought my car, both high beams were cracked. I figured no biggie, I'll just pop in new bulbs. Ha! After attempting it with instructions from Bruno's site, I had the dealer do it...truly a big PITA!!!

[MicahO]

the only good thing about that whole procedure is how a truly AR person can clean the hidden bits at the front of the car. Quite a pain!

That said, for the cost of the headlamps, there are some enterprising souls out there who might have been encouraged to steal them, as has been seen on some late model xenon-ed cars recently.....

[George M]

there is a much easier way....remove the front grill which isn't too bad and leave the headlight assembly frame that secures high and low beams attached to the car. Next take some wire cutters and explode the orbital socket clips that retain the headlight assy ears to the three headlight screws that you removed....you don't have to remove the screws. Not only are the screws a pain to remove but you then lose the adjustment of your headlight. The small plastic orbital socket clips should be replaced anyway..they are pennies at BMA because they become embrittled due to high headlight heat over time wicking out elastomers from the plastic. They normally break upon removal. Changing a headlight on one of these cars (if you know where the grill clips are :-) should take no more than 15 minutes.
HTH those future headlight changers out there.
George
Rebuilt front high and low beam headlights/full disassembly including taking apart US ellipsoid's last summer.