LED tail light DIY

[flatlander]

Originally Posted by mrbmwx5

Yes you need to pop that out to get to lower tail gate lights and yes i did it by added more LEDs in there...

Thanks Tom! That looks awesome. I'm going to have a look in the back panel to see what I can do to get these babies lit up.

[m5james]

Looks to have a little bit of CELIS style tubing inside of them. I've got a GT1 latop...do I need to do coding to stop error messages then?

[tmv]

It looks like they do have the Celis tubes, however those don't light up.
If your vehicle info is current, you don't need to do anything to put them on your pre-facelift. It's a direct swap.

[mrbmwx5]

Those light do have Celis tube that doesn't lite up but I had them lite up by adding more LEDs into them. .. You can call me crazy haha.

Btw way if some of you having problem with erro codes just add one capacitor per light (side) it will taking care of that problem.if you guys need how I more then happy to help you out how to soldering the capacitor to the light.

[mdubs9]

Originally Posted by mrbmwx5

Those light do have Celis tube that doesn't lite up but I had them lite up by adding more LEDs into them. .. You can call me crazy haha.

Btw way if some of you having problem with erro codes just add one capacitor per light (side) it will taking care of that problem.if you guys need how I more then happy to help you out how to soldering the capacitor to the light.

Hey mrbmwx5,

I am having difficulty figuring out how to add the capacitors. I have 2x (2 pin) capacitors, and have the led tail lights. How do I tap these buggers in?

[mdubs9]

update:

So I have soldered a capacitor directly on both sides (black cap to black wire, white cap to green wire) and have some flikering still. I have cold monitoring disabled in the programming. Any suggestions?

[tmv]

What capacitors did you use? and which wire did you solder them on?

[mdubs9]

Originally Posted by tmv

What capacitors did you use? and which wire did you solder them on?

I Used 35V 6800mf capacitors, seen wired here... look ok?

Another problem is, when I rev the engine, all my interior / exterior lights dim and brighten upon throttle depending on the RPM. This has happened after installed lights.. Any ideas?

[romeokc10]

You should have bought the resistors off Ebay that have a wire at each end instead of a bare pin. I installed a set on my X, one of the first mods I did, it was an easy install and with the resistors I used you can install them with simple T-taps connectors instead of going through the trouble of soldering. Plus they look nicer and neater than the ones you have, they come in 25w and 50w, I think I used 25w. My LED tail lights have been on for 4 years now with no problems whatsoever, check out the link below.

2X Load Resistor for Car Turn Signal LED Bulb 25W 10ohm | eBay


EDIT: I just noticed you have a 2005, apparently from everything I've read over the years, BMW changed something starting in 2003, so the 2003 and up models have trouble when installing LED tails, mine is a 2002.

[Ricky Bobby]

If your lights are flickering with the rpms your alternator is weak it has nothing to do with the tails