I looked in the handbook and didnt see anything that relates.

When I first turn the ignition on the headlights come on but then the passenger side one seems to elevate, akin to those sports cars that had pop-up headlights. Takes maybe a second for it to move.
Also I will be driving along and (not sure if its both sides or just one) and the light/s will appear to "flash" to a brighter setting (almost the opposite of an autodim) seems to happen if I am going slow and then hit the gas a bit. Are these any type of reactive headlights? Not come across this before.

Thanks
Alan

 

The 'auto-elevation at switch-on' issue ... early X350s (with HID dip beams, but not on those with ordinary halogen lamps) had levelling motors. According to Special Service Message SSM17841 these were deleted at chassis number G39155 [edit - Ah, that's sometime during 2005]. They were able to do that because the self-levelling suspension alone was able to keep the lights level.

It would seem your car is pre-G39155 with HID lamps. Apparently each time they are switched on these levelling motors go to the fully down position and then come up to the level position; sounds like yours isn't stopping there and is going on to fully up.

Why it should do that I wouldn't like to say; ordinarily I should say that a limit switch isn't working, but as they are 'stepper' motors driven by a 'black-box' ... hmm, I'm not sure.

The light flashing ... hard to say, but X350 headlamps do have a reputation for suffering from problems with the earth/ground return connections, at the earthing studs on the car frame/body/chassis/whatever.

Dave (in beautiful downtown Gloucestershire)

 

Hi Dave,

Thanks so much for the explanation. Just to confuse things I think my air suspension was removed in the past so not quite sure where that leaves me? Somewhere in the dark i suspect Is there a procedure to check the height of the beams stationary against the garage door or something?

 

Ah, that makes life a bit difficult - there are adjusters on the lamps, but I haven't had to do mine so I'm not familiar with where they are.

For the dip beams I guess setting then so the top 'cut-off' on a wall or g/door is just lower than the lamp - that would mean that the flat top of the beam will be gently downwards.

I've not seen an actual procedure in any of the Jaguar documents.

Documents can be downloaded for modest cost from jagdocs.com , and some are available free on this site - see the 'stickies' at the top of the posts list.

There's a lot of good stuff in the 'stickies'; well worth looking at.

 

Seems I do have air suspension. Finally saw it in action today. I also saw the lights doing their thing from outside the car. The right lamp does do the correct thing by looking down then back to the middle position but the left side does nothing. Will have to look into that. As I mentioned it was in a front end rebuild so I wonder if the left light was replaced with a non-dipper version although it looks exactly the same. Maybe someone forgot to reconnect the stepper motor and if so, I think I will leave it disconnected anyway now that I have air suspension confirmed.
Alan