Quote:
Originally Posted by Bdc101
Yeah, I popped out the light housing this evening, and the metal strips which are used as conductors have come loose. The little plastic rivets which hold the metal strips in place have broken off, so the metal is wiggling around and the bulb sockets are loose. However, the one which was loose was working and after fiddling around with the one which was tight but wasn't working, it started working again. Anyways, I'm working on getting a third brake light on the way, and then I'll see if the fix in that thread is something I want to do for the housings. I'm not sure how long my third brake light has been out, it may have been very recent but I never got a dash message until recently when the side light went out.
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On your tail lights, it sounds like you've found the same problem I've had, which I think is the most common one there. My solution was to drill little holes in the plastic and use small coarse-threaded screws into those holes to hold the sheet metal in place. That has been a rock solid solution since I figured that one out, following a few less successful attempts with aluminum foil, sandpaper, solder, screwing around with the sockets, etc.
On the 3rd brake light, you may find some info on here about that. I have posted a few things on that, and have read others. Most people seem to always just buy a new BMW one, but for me that's usually the last resort.
Here's a post from when I first had a problem with mine:
https://xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-forums/...light-led.html
I recall there are 6x clusters of 4x LEDs in the strip. As the circuit is designed, each cluster of 4 drops along with a resistor or two from +12V to ground, with ~2.xV drop across each LED bulb. When one LED fails, you lose the full cluster of 4, but remaining clusters will be OK.
So if you've lost the whole strip, I'd be thinking the problem is not in the strip itself, but in the wiring to it. If you access the strip (remove the spoiler with about 5x Torx screws, as I recall; pretty easy) you'll find the 2P connector going to the strip. Brown wire is ground. I'll guess a blue wire for +12V power. So if you put power and ground through those, you may find it light up, meaning your strip is OK and you then need to figure out why it is not getting the +12V when it should.