Need help with facelifted tail lights!

[powers1]

Originally Posted by x5fromOz

The bulb in the bottom light is a twin fillament type. The fillament for the tail light (5watts) has blown so when you put your foot on the brake the brake light fillament (21watt) glows....OR.... you have put a single fillament bulb in the bottom light (brake light hole) and this only illuminates when you brake.
See how this goes...compare the bottom bulb with the one in the other light cluster.
Cheers

Sorry to resurrect an old thread,but still better than start "yet" another one and it is relevant to the topic and my recent experience.

Today ,I installed 2005 tail lights on my 2003 X5,and again notice that altough the dual filament bulb is in the middle, it is in fact the single filament bulb on the bottom that works as a side & brake light.Ok,I did my search here and it is said that the dual filament light is for adaptive braking,but its still weird why the bottom bulb only has 1 filament when in other cars it generally has 2!
I decided to experiment and swapped the middle and bottom bulbs and now the twin filament light in the bottom connection works fine as a side light and brake light!Any reason why I cannot leave like this?
I also experimented fitting 2 single filament bulbs(middle & bottom) and have no idea why the bottom connector plate got very ,very hot!(impossible to touch!)..all cool again once i fitted the dual filament

The main reason I am making this post is because there is a contradiction on the oem position for the dual filament bulb!Here X5fromoz says its on the bottom connector....but here http://www.xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-foru...-question.html its in the middle ,as was mine!


Thanks for the input

[powers1]

Never mind!According to page 161 of the users manual, the dual filament bulb can be either in the middle ot the lower connector.
Even when connected in the lower,still only one filament works for normal braking.