Smoked LED tail lights

[PersonaNonGrata]

Originally Posted by Ricky Bobby

Did that and nothing!


Now I unplugged the tails, and find that there are 4 wires from the stock tail light harness and 4 pins on the LED tails, the only problem is that these "pins" on the LED tails don't line up with all 4 wire contacts on the stock tail light harness. I've tried bending them to one side with no success, should I try to move the 2 wires over on the stock tail light harness?


It looks like this on the socket for the tail:

[- - - - ]

And this on the LED socket:

[ - - - - ]



FIXED! UPDATE 9:20 PM (1 HOUR LATER)



All I did was move the blue/green wire from pin 6 to pin 4, kept my capactitors plugged in, and success! Everything works!!!!



BMW, I hate to say it. But you guys are friggin stupid, how many different ways can you wire tail lights for a car that was only made 6 years? I have found at least a half dozen other threads of guys trying to switch halogen tails and have had to move pins around in their wiring harness too!



Either way, all is working and I am happy, and now my X's ass looks phenomenal!

Congrats! I'm sure it is a huge improvement.

I feel your pain on the pins. I wrote about how one side didn't line up quite right. The passenger side was a simple plug and play but the driver's side took some fiddling with the pins.

[SlickGT1]

wow good news. Glad you figured it out. Now only if there was a solution for us 2006 guys.

[weekend camper]

Originally Posted by SlickGT1

wow good news. Glad you figured it out. Now only if there was a solution for us 2006 guys.

I'm curious why there is a problem w 2006 MY? Doesn't the capacitor fix/resistor fix with a potential pin movement cure problems?

Or are you referring to the loss of the adaptive brake lighting?

[SlickGT1]

Adaptive brakes seem to be lost with this upgrade.

[GingaNinja]

New guy here trying to learn everything. Just got a 05 4.8is this past saturday. Has there been any trouble with these kits on MY 05?

[dkl]

Originally Posted by GingaNinja

New guy here trying to learn everything. Just got a 05 4.8is this past saturday. Has there been any trouble with these kits on MY 05?

See "lost of adaptive brake light function" on posts above.

[Ricky Bobby]

HEY OP!


Do me a favor and start your car and tell me if you notice a "flashing/strobing" effect from the LED tails on startup.


My mother-in-law asked me the other day if I had strobes on my tails because she apparently saw a flashing sequence from the rear when I started my car. Interested to know if anyone else experiences this, I started my car last night to get dinner and could see the "flashing/strobing" happening when I started the car.


I have Cesar's capacitors and no errors at the moment (although I did get a random error one day a couple weeks ago), and the lights are working fine with no flickering.

[SlickGT1]

Originally Posted by Ricky Bobby

HEY OP!


Do me a favor and start your car and tell me if you notice a "flashing/strobing" effect from the LED tails on startup.


My mother-in-law asked me the other day if I had strobes on my tails because she apparently saw a flashing sequence from the rear when I started my car. Interested to know if anyone else experiences this, I started my car last night to get dinner and could see the "flashing/strobing" happening when I started the car.


I have Cesar's capacitors and no errors at the moment (although I did get a random error one day a couple weeks ago), and the lights are working fine with no flickering.

Ricky, got the LEDs in my licence plate lights. When the engine cranks, they flicker, no matter if the lights are on or off. But once the car is running, they are off, or on depending if the lights are on. My light switch is always in the off position when starting. I like to work my lights myself.

[Ricky Bobby]

Originally Posted by SlickGT1

Ricky, got the LEDs in my licence plate lights. When the engine cranks, they flicker, no matter if the lights are on or off. But once the car is running, they are off, or on depending if the lights are on. My light switch is always in the off position when starting. I like to work my lights myself.

Got LEDs in my license lights as well, and they work when the car is running!

I leave my lights on off (never use auto feature) so when the car cranks and starts all my lights are off, and there is no flickering.

However, when the car first started up (after cranking) the other day, the lights almost did a "startup flashing" sequence in the back, at least from the tails. I don't know if the LED's had the same flashing sequence. I will check again later to see if it does it every time I start the car, I'm guessing it's a stupid "cold diagnostic check" that I only notice now that I have LED's in the rear.

[JonK]

I did my LED for 05. Got clear chrome from zomkspeed, I think. They look gangster I regret a bit. Anywho, the ebay seller said it would work for model 04 & up. It did. However. it has light flickering issues which is hard to notice.
I got 4 capacitors from ebay like 2$ each from ebay with same specs. Capacitors are capacitors, folks. Didn't solder them in yet. I will keep you posted when it is done.

I also had to do LED Tail upgrade on E46 by necessities. They are horrible regulating voltage, they all burn out causing weird inconsistent problem. Kudos for BMW...