I found them (I think) on Amazon for $154. http://www.amazon.com/Spyder-Auto-Cl...lights+e53+bmw

Those are NON LED - they are halogen

OK just to clarify: I will not need to get capacitors for my 01 auto and only for the 03 5mt? Weird. Did they change some electronics after 01?

Correct. They changed the brakes in 03 so that the illuminate brighter when stopping harder I believe.

^^Adaptive braking on 03-up - Josh is right

It looks like this seller will do this for me for my 03:

Thank you for updating us~

For the tail lights, a capacitor can be installed onto the ground and power wires for the parking LED function.

This is primarily due to the adaptive brake function that is equipped in the newer facelift 03-06 model years.

With the 01-03 you will not have an issue with this feature since the adaptive brake feature was not introduced in these earlier model years.

In any case that you were interested in purchasing this tail light set for the 03-06 models, we can pre-install a capacitor into tail light wiring prior to shipment.

This is a service that we can provide to you free of charge at no cost to you.

Please feel free to let us know if you have any further questions or concerns regarding this item.

Sincerely
VIPMOTOZ

Not a bad deal at all. It cost me an extra $30 for the capacitors and I had to install them myself (just clamp style install).

I put these on our X5, they work great. I did have an issue with getting some that didn't have sanding marks on them. They had to send me 3 sets of inner light before I got a set that wasn't messed up.

I have a 2006 with the LED tails ,
no capacitors,
and no flicker;
just changed some values ,
I'm not sure if anyone else has tried it?:
http://www.xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-foru...ght-diy-3.html