g300d,
Many thanks, this is helpful. This could explain why my first set of LEDs failed prematurely. I bought Carly for diagnostics and coding, but it has limited support for the E53. I do not see coding for bulb monitoring. What application do you use for coding your E53?

NCS Expert

you can get some CREE LED 5, 7, or 10 watt replacements in different colors on ebay. Just make sure you check the bulb life ie. should be around 50,000 hrs. they're only 20 or 30 bucks shipped and they work great. Just replaced mine.

Yup, as mentioned you can get NCS Expert for that. Look for the various coding threads here to have an idea on how it goes. There is lots of info in them as to what you need and where to get it, and the actual coding itself. I havent actually gotten around to coding myself though I've been meaning to for a long time lol.

Yup, you need to get rid of cold monitoring for those LEDs to not die. You can actually see them flash if you can find a dark spot to park against. Turn key to position 2, and you will see it flicker without the lights being on. Will do this every time you get in the car for about 15 seconds.

I have the cold check turned off because I was getting an error message, but I still get the flicker with LED halos and the LED license plate lights. No check side lights message anymore but still he flicker. Did I do something wrong? I also get this on my E38.

You did. I no longer get flicker, and my bulbs stopped burning out a long time ago. I went through 2 sets of ice vxx in a month. Life time warrantee for the win.

Bimmer, you may have turned off cold monitoring in certain lights but not for the ones that flicker. Check your settings to make sure cold monitoring to those lights are indeed off.

Will do. The weird thing is that the error message went away. But I'll play with it and see. I'm new to NCS Expert so it'll give me a chance to play too :)

Yeah they look fun to play with and being in German is a challenge lol! Planning to get a system soon, lots of things I wanna code on mine.