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Old 11-20-2019, 03:40 PM
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Un-retrofiting E71 Led Headlights

Greetings,


I have a 2009 X6M (European model) and around early 2015 I decided to retrofit the LED headlights which went along nicely. Last year, a friend of mine who lived on Houston for a couple of years working for an Oil company decided to sell his car, a 2011 X6M (US model). I thought it was a good deal, so I went to buy his and the idea was to sometime later sell mine.


For this reason I decided to un-retrofit the headlights on my 2009 X6 and it has been a much more complicated affair then I had anticipated. A couple of BMW dealerships refused to do it saying that once upgraded to LED Headlights, it would be impossible to go back to xenon.
But I found a shop to do the job and they removed the harness that came with the retrofit kit, installed the original FRM module (still had the original as I had to get a new one when the LED headlights were installed). Everything seemed to be working fine except for the high beams. If the lights are turned off, and high beam lever is pushed, the low beams will come on (as they are supposed to). But if low beams are already on, it becomes evident that high beam function simply isn’t working. Not on the xenon projectors (where I think a mirror moves to give a high beam light pattern) nor the halogen bulbs that are supposed to come on as well.

When I went back to the shop and the car was connected to the computer, it showed an error saying something about the response time for the LED headlights being exceeded. This means the car still assumes it has LED headlights installed. Unfortunately the guy at the shop that has more expertise on such things was attending SEMA so I’m scheduled to go back but in a few days but, before I do, I want to try and get some more information myself. I’m not sure but I think they only removed the retrofit harness and swapped the FRM. Is the coding of the headlights done on other module/place rather than the FRM alone?



Other than the high beams issue, everything seem okay (even the adaptive lights) and no error messages on the display whatsoever.


Even though the guys at the shop don’t think that might be an issue, I’m concerned the problem is being caused by the fact I’m swapping headlights between US and EU models. Another question I have is, if the LED headlights I removed which are for EU models (63132297442), will then work when I try to install them on the US model.


Any help would be much appreciated.



A picture with the retrofited LED headlights




A picture as the car is now with the xenon headlights





Thanks in advance!
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  #2  
Old 12-02-2019, 01:14 AM
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It's not as simple as removing the harness and bringing back the old FRM. There were wires snipped during the installation process and those will need to be reconnected to the headlight connector in order for the high beams to work.

You should find the LED installation guide in the master LED thread (either in X5 or X6 forum here) and review what wires are modified/cut to step backwards.

Good luck
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Old 11-01-2021, 07:15 AM
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Hi Chris,

Thank you very much for the feedback. Even though I'm only coming back to this thread now, it was solved some time ago. The headlights high beam issue was fixed and they are working perfectly fine now (indicators, parking lights, low beams, high beams and adaptive (directional/cornering) headlights.

Just like you suggested, the Full Led installation procedure was applied in reverse order in terms of wire connections. But the coding was done at the end.

The guys at the shop took some time because the idea was to be able to use the harness again should the LED lights were to be re-installed. So it was left in place.

I was a little concerned because the xenon headlights had come from a US model. On the other hand, I managed to get the Full LED headlights from my European model into the US model as well but that's another story. It was done a couple of weeks ago so that's the reason why I'm only coming back to this thread now.

In the end, I was able to un-retrofit the headlights (from a European model) and installed them on another car (US model) and had all major functions work properly with one little exception. The orange markers on the US model xenon headlights don't work on the EU model despite that option being turned on with the coding options. But that's not a big deal anyway. On the US model with EU Full LED headlights everything works with no exception, even the orange side markers light up normally.

If you effectively reverse each step of the procedure, you should be able to go back the original headlight configuration without problems. This might be an option as the price of the Full LED Headlights for the E70/71 aren't coming down that much. So it might be an option to whoever did this retrofit and kept the original headlights go back and sell them separately.
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