Dim tail lights

[white lancer]

On my E53 I noticed at the weekend that my left hand side tail lights are slightly dimmer than my right hand side tail lights? As far as I know they both have the same standard lamps / bulbs in them. They are the same wattage / voltage etc.

Has anyone seen this before? I think my first port of call will be to replace both sets of lamps this week and see if that improves things? I might try and clean up the terminals while im at it

[BigLion]

For me the terminals was the key - I had one side strobing due to the daft contact setup they use for these bulbs

Give it a thorough scrub with a wire brush

[dhyrk3]

^^ ditto

[g300d]

I had issues with a bulb out of the 4 being dimmer than the rest.

I took out the bulbholder of the dim light, bent the contact tabs outward, and reinstalled. Worked fine after.

But if it is all the bulbs for one side it might be a different problem.

[white lancer]

It is just one out of the 4 which is dimmer. It sounds like it may be a contact issue from the replies.

[white lancer]

I gave the dim light holder a good old wiggle tonight and it has gone back to normal brightness - seemed it was just a dodgy connection after all

[g300d]

Yup that's it. I found bending the tabs improves the contact so you dont have to wiggle it as often.

Those types of loose contacts also heats up the contact points and can eventually melt a portion of the contact points. I had to solder a contact point of one of my tail lights because of this already.

[bcredliner]

I smidgin of electrical grease each on each bulb contact is a worthwhile preventative.