Just another thread on this famously popular topic, however this is my story and how I fixed mine.
Coming to this time of year again, and like many before, sure enough my off side lamp seems to stay down following its initialisation test and would not do the up/down part of the test whatever I tried.
I thought i would try a replacement AFS module on the bottom of the light - didn’t cure it. Having read many times that a replacement headlight was the only answer I found a clouded lens one (didn’t need that bit) on eBay for £50 and promptly fitted it and bingo it worked as it should - so it was the headlight unit after all! Spent a couple of hours removing all lens oxidation and polishing back to near new I fitted it as a whole unit and all good.
Now as I have a spare it was time to work out what was causing the issue. Worked out what did what and identified the motor that did the up and down part. Having read that it may have burnt out I saw that it was a Hella 734 857 03 motor used on many cars for levelling headlights (about £25). As this was now a spare I thought I had nothing to lose by stripping it out and having a further look.
Being held in by only 2 screws I had to have a go. Took it out and stripped down the motor and found the rotor had traveled full length of its thread and bottomed out and took some force to unscrew it - weird but looks like it had jammed itself, not much but obviously enough that the stepper motor didn’t have enough power to unstick it and drive it along the thread as it should do to operate the internal ‘eye’ element of the light. I lubed it up and put it back together and thought it couldn’t be something as stupid as just that but it was, and when I just quickly slaved it in it all worked as it should and did all its calibration dance and sat level like it was supposed to do! I don’t know how it did what it did, maybe just needed fresh lube but it had been playing up on off for a few years but this time it stayed down for a while and wouldn’t play at all. I refitted the original back onto the car and it’s been fine ever since….. fingers crossed.
If anyone is interested in having a go if their light seems to stay down (never seen anyone with one stuck left to right, always up/down issues, must be as up/down has all the weight of the lens on it?). Below are some pics I did as a second run through to show others.



Motor at back of light.



Support the lens assembly as the weight is on this ball.



Using a small screwdriver/pick carefully undo clip.



These clips hold the motor casing on along with the next ones.



You need 3 hands but can be done with just two.



This showed where mine had bottomed out on the thread and jammed itself at the end so was fully retracted therefore the lens was pointing down.



Fully retracted.



I measured 7mm of rod sticking out to make it easier to get it back into its socket in the light. Caution - very fiddly but does go back in with care. It sorts it’s own position out after initialisation.



And that’s it after all back together. Now sitting sort of level. When plugged in to car it now does all elements of initialisation ‘dance’ and levels itself to the correct position.

Hope this helps someone, feel free to ask if I’ve missed something.

Hi Yellopin - thank you so much for the write up! I've been plagued with this issue for a while now myself and cannot figure out what to do!

Quick question for you: How were you able to fit a torx screw in there to remove the motor? On mine one of the screws is obscured by the headlight housing.

JB, apologies for the delay. I might be too late to answer you as you probably fixed them by now. To access the torx screws I used a right angle torx wrench (like the usual small set of Allen keys). Hoping you’ve fixed the lights? Mine have never played up again after doing the fix.

Great write up  Range Rover Sport: Mercedes S63 AMG Coupe: 992 Porsche Carrera 4S

Finally decided to take a stab at this after being reminded about this tread.

First I had opened all of the both bulb covers in the back.



Remove the main xenon headlight igniter and take it out of the housing (Allows for hand space within the headlight housing).



You will notice that the bottom torx screw is the easiest to remove, so do so. T20.



As for the top torx removal, my swivel ratchet/bit did not have enough room to unscrew it nor break the initial tightness.
My solution was to drill a hole in the back to access it (A little right of the P). Once I had access I used a T20 torx screwdriver. None of my other individual torx/allen wrenches were long enough.




To remove it you will have to slide the motor to towards the main xenon bulb direction. The motor you are pulling out as a peg/stick that is on a track (white plastic - Sorry I did not notice that the iPhone x3 zoom len distorted the image).




You can now use a small screwdriver to pop off the cover. Gently.


In my case the rod spun freely (unlike the OP). You can spin that brown barrel in either direction and it will bring the rod in/out-ward.



Looking at the magnetic silver barrel/windings (Don't know the technical name) you can see wear marks. That brown barrel spins in them as power is sent to the motor assembly. I doubt this is an issue, but I wiped the inner silver barrel/windings with electrical connector cleaner. (Once again sorry for the iPhone's strange zoom quality. It looks like some drawing filter was applied to it)




Anyways, clean/lube which ever piece you want at this point, then reassemble. Power on the car to verify the lights still "dance"

Here is a photo of the part (Sorry for the quality and that I cannot rotate images on here)
It reads "HELLA 734 857-03"


Maybe it is best to replace it with a newer/used motor of the same model. I was only able to find an eBay seller in the UK, but does not ship to the USA.

Look around Audi appeared to use the same model too? Part# 4E0941293
Some parts suppliers want ~$150 USD, yikes. But this seems to be a drop in replacement (I dont know for sure, I am going off every google image of it).

Hi duckboy. Hope you managed to fix your light? Mine hasn’t played up once since I did mine (inc a clean MoT, they always play up just before an MoT!). I agree that those torx screws are a bit of a pain. I picked up some Allen key style wrenches some years ago from B&M or home bargains for £2 thinking I might need them for some job one day….like you do!?! Little did I realise that they would come in handy for this job, granted they took a little patience but that’s what I used to get at the screws. As you say these little Hella motors are used on the majority of the period xenon headlights and can be found a lot cheaper if you search for the part number or a less premium brand of car that doesn’t demand a price hike just because of the label.

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