BMW X5 tail and brake light problems

[jdstrickland]

Originally Posted by bpathare

I have a similar problem on '04 X5 3.0. Rear left taillight wiring harness connector has a bad ground brown wire, which when I twist it makes a good contact & lights come on, but hard to keep in that position & lights go out. Dealer's asking $550 to replace the entire rear left light assembly & repair the ground wire. I know this is highway robbery. Does anyone know how I can replace the wiring harness connector? Please help, much appreciated.

I'm not sure what the issue is here. You found a wire making poor contact, fix it.

Tail light assembly grounds have been an ongoing problem for BMWs for a very long time. The E46 is famous for actually burning the pin of the ground wire. The upside of the issue is that since the wire is a ground, then you can take a length of wire and attach it to one of the traces in the tail lamp and splice it to the wire on the car. You leave a service loop that's long enough that you can unplug the connector if needed, without having to disturb the workaround that is giving a good ground.

[bpathare]

Found out that the connector AND the socket on the tail light fixture has shorted due to the bad ground. This is a frequent BMW problem from my research. The ground brown wire is 1mm but the connector & socket pin & female for the ground is undersized, no wonder it gets hot & melts. BMW should have recalled this, but they haven't yet to my knowledge. So, I've ordered a new OEM tail light assembly on line ($165) & new connector w/bushing ground wire ($10). I'm going to splice the ground wire into the new harness/connector & reinstall the other wires & hope it wall works back to normal. Wish me luck, I'll keep y'all posted. Happy New Year!