DIY - Rear footwell lights retrofit
 

Saw this mod on the rear seat heating retrofit thread and decided to take the plunge. My wife's E70 has these and they really help light the back seat. I have a lightly optioned 01, and the connectors were in the harness, under the rear carpet, just needed to fish them out. Looks like I also have the rear seat heater wiring BTW; the plug next to the red pencil in the second pic; theres an identical connector on the other side. No idea what the large flat plug is.

You need to remove the back seat cushion, lift the front edge up and pull it out. Need to unbolt the middle seatbelt and the receptacle - 16mm bolt. Fish the seatbelt through the cushion and remove the cushion.

I've never had the back seat out, here's what 15 years of accumulated crap looks like: about three bucks in change, assorted hair thingys, moldy pretzels, goldfish, gameboy cartridge, legos, etc. Nice.

You need to unclip and remove the two plastic trim pieces covering the sill in order to pull the carpet forward. These are fragile, I broke one of the mounting brackets holding the clips, no big deal, I epoxied it back together. There are 4 plastic clips holding each of these on.

Working on the BACK SIDE of the carpet, I drew an outline onto the foam of the narrowest portion of the light housing and carefully cut a flap in the carpet from the BACK. The heelboard carpet is foam padded and theres a cup molded into it where these fit. I didn't get a good pic of the foam cups, but it will be obvious where these go. Just center your Sharpie outline inside this foam cup and you're good. The lights are flanged, and the opening only needs to be as large as the "box" of the light housing. Test fit the lights a few times before you make the flap any bigger, then carefully trim the flap out. I slit each corner slightly, fished the wiring through the hole, seated the connector and then pushed them in. The housings have holes in them that are much bigger than the mounting studs, so you dont need surgical precision when making the carpet cut. Just don't make the cutout too large.

The lights do not include the plastic flanged nuts, so I had to source those at my local hardware store, two bucks for some 10-24 nylon nuts and washers. There are self-tapping course thread studs welded to the heelboard.

Took a couple of hours; I really like this look.

My car had it already when i bought it! Strange..I thought every x5 has those lights!

These are nice complimentary interior lights for the X. I love them in my X5 4.6is

I believe they are in Premium Package X5's. I havent't checked my Mother in law's '01, but it does not have PP. It does have the three dials for AC/Heat controls rather than dual zone digital.

A lot of folks did this retrofit to the E39. Nice look there as well.

Scott: Does your '01 have Premium Package? It's rare to find an X5 without it. It has been perfect for my Mother in law who can easily see/understand the three large dials. Her's is even more strange as it did come with Sport Package and Cold Weather. Just not Premium. My 11 yr old daughter has eyes on driving it when the time comes. 4 years- YIKES!

I do not have the Premium Package, but I do have the pushbutton auto climate control. My 01 is a little strange; I ordered it from the dealer in 00. This was my wife's kid hauler and the only way to keep 'ette seats was to skip the PP and add the other options piecemeal. I have xenons, Cold Weather, PDC, privacy glass and some other random stuff... type 63 wheels from the 4.4i sport package.

Makes sense the lights were only included in the PP though. I also swapped the single dome light in the rear for the one included in the PP that has dome and individual reading lamps.

My car is 02.year! I have normal sport package with self leveling suspension at the back! I even don't have heated seats! I have no sun roof! I was thinking of it...but company who makes them in the cars said it is impossible to build them inside for X5! But I handle that I have no sun roof!
I have automatic head lights!
Just made retrofit for rear seat adjustment! Put in homelink for garage
Retrofits in future:
1)heated comfort seats
2) heated steering wheel from fl
3) to get remote for webasto
4) rear airbags with door panels

Did this very cheap mod a few years back - mine has Premium Package and was also pre-wired but did not have the housings from the factory. They really help when vaccuuming out the car and light up the rear floor much better -

Mine's an '01 with PP and didn't have these installed. But it's pre-wired for lots of stuff including rear self-leveling suspension.

Ok, scrap the Premium Package theory then, lol. Maybe only the V8 cars got them? RickyB, Kristophe - do we all have the 3.0i?

Wish I would have installed these years ago.

My 04 and 05 have premium.(Both 3.0's) But, Only the 05 has the lights.