I was able to tackle the ballast replacement over the weekend. I found a guaranteed working one on eBay for about $130 and picked up a hand full of plastic rivets from the local BMW parts dept. and went at it.

What I learned: There were 9 plastic rivets to remove on the trim. That was the easy part. The wheel well cover had about a dozen bolt head screws, one torx screw (which I suspect may have been a shop find replacement for a bolt head screw), a plastic nut, and three small plastic rivets for a vent duct that RealOEM shows as a discontinued item. With a little maneuvering, the wheel well cover came out easily.

I was not able to access the ballast on bottom of the light housing directly, as it was directly above what looked like an oil cooler (if that's not what it is, please correct me, otherwise, that's what I'm calling it). I remember a note of that being located on the passenger side, but it was directly in the way on the drivers side (not so much the cooler itself but the bracket that held it in place). Short of taking the light assembly out of the vehicle, there was no way to access two of the four screws holding in the ballast on the underside of the light assembly. PLUS, it would have been extremely difficult to unplug and retrieve the old unit, and re-plug and seat the new one. It was best replaced on the work bench.

So I decided to remove the light assembly completely. Basically just had to unplug the unit and remove the 5 bolts mentioned earlier in this post. I found the two screws on the left and one bottom screws for the light assembly easily, but had to use a long flexible extension to remove the two on the right (top and bottom).

Once the screws were removed, the light housing was free, but the fun was just beginning as to how to get it out through the wheel well. It did not come out easy and without force. The bracket holding the oil cooler was in the way, and to remove it would have almost required removing the fender itself. Plus the bracket was not coming out without removing the oil cooler, which was not a path I wanted to go down. I had to find the position that posed the least resistance and give it a healthy push to get it past the plastic fender and brackets. It was a scary moment when it popped free but no damage done.

Once out, replacement of the ballast was easy on the bench.

Re-assembly went much smoother and it seemed to slip back into position easier then removal. It still took quite a bit of maneuvering and a little force at the pinch-point to get it over the oil cooler bracket without damaging the freshly installed ballast.

Getting the wheel well back in was a little more tricky than removal, in order to get it back in the correct overlapping orientation with the other panels.

I would give it a 3 out of 10, as far as difficulty, but I may have made it a 5 or 6 by not removing brackets, or missing a step where removing an additional bolt or two might have made it easier.

Hope this helps anyone tackling this project.

It seem

__________________
'10 X5 3.5d, White and Tan
'01 X5 4.4i, Black and Tan, SOLD