KWolf

Hi All - I was in a collision a few months back and had to have repair work done to the front of my car. I was referred by the local Audi dealer to a shop with Audi-certified techs to have it fixed. When I originally got the car back, the headlights were very misaligned, I ended up taking the car back twice as the first time they hardly changed them. I can tell they are still not aligned properly, as the cut-off is far to high and ends up blinding oncoming traffic constantly. I mentioned this to the repair shop and the contact there keeps telling me "there is only so much they can do" with the auto-leveling headlights. My question is, should a shop with Audi-certified techs have the ability to align my headlights or do I need to take this to a dealer now and see if they can further correct it?

When they are aligning these headlights, are they strictly aligned based on the physical position of the housings, or can they be fine-tuned using the car's electronics?

First post...hoping to get some advice. Apologies if this is the wrong section - still learning the forum layout. Thanks in advance.

383vett

Take it back to the company that repaired the car after the collision.

SMac770

You have to use the basic setting to set the headlights. You manually set the zero position for the headlights during the basic setting, where it also updates the zero position of the suspension level sensors. If air, it also moves the air suspension to the zero position. You cannot correctly adjust the headlamps without a scan tool to invoke the basic setting (I believe it's a basic setting, not an adaptation, but it's wherever it is). Should be under J519 (09-central electrics).

The dealership uses a tool they set 1m in front of the headlamp to do this process. A private owner just has to point at a wall with as much distance as possible. NAR Q5 lamps are 0.0% VOR for B9.0 and 0.7% VOL for B9.5. https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publication...148/aiming.cfm So the center point is center of the headlamp directly straight forward to the wall, then you do the manual adjustment to set the beam pattern where it belongs based on the spec stamped on the headlamp plastic. The "%" is the down angle from center. If center of headlamp bulb to the wall is 144 inches (12'), then 0.7% is 1.0" down from the bulb height center line (but this only is correct if the vehicle is in the configured state for setting the manual headlamp adjustment). The web page says 0.6%, the workshop manual says 0.7%, the correct is whatever is stamped on the headlamp.

You also need the fuel tank 90% or more full, and someone, or ~165 lbs of weight, in the drivers seat.

RCPrato

I think that is the problem, they don't know how to correct the problem?

sQ5Atlanta

I have had the right Matrix headlight replaced due to striking a mailbox. When I got the SQ5 back the new right headlight was way high. The body shop called in a tech that went into the electronics and put the headlights in a Basic or manual setting. Then he adjusted the headlight manually using the adjustment screw. He then turned the electronic headlight system back on and it's perfect now. By the way the OEM price on the Matrix Headlight is $4729.00