Thanks to all for the replies.
If you thought those pictures looked bad, once I started mending the cables, it got a lot worse, with a lot of the insulation just breaking apart on touch...
Anyway, as I needed the car to go to work, I spent some 5 to 6 hours isolating the cables as well as I could with electrical and liquid tape .
Some learnings from the whole thing:
- Even if there is a replacement loom/cable, it will not be easy to substitute it. It likely needs a special tool to connect it to the plastic piece where the engine wire harness connects (not sure as visibility wasn't the best), and it also seems likely I would have to completely remove the Xenon assembly to reach some places where the cable is locked onto...
- As some areas were very hard to reach, I'm not sure they got properly isolated. For me this is a temporary fix.
After assembling everything back in the car, I tested it and all worked!
Still, on the way back home later that day, I got the "check low beam" alert again, several minutes after it had been on without a problem. If I switched it off and waited a bit, it would go on again for a few seconds...
This morning, I had it on for about 5 minutes without any problem (then I got to work, so couldn't test it further).
This leads me to believe there might be other reasons for the alert... Or the electrical short only happens once the headlight gets hot enough...
Does anyone have an idea of what else might be happening here? Would any of the BMW software tools give me a more detailed status of what is going on with the headlight?
Also, any recommendations on where to get a replacement headlight? How much do these usually go for? Sorry, first time I actually need BMW parts...
Thanks,
PR