Agree totally - but I was just pointing out that the burn issues I've seen have been limited to the tail/brake circuits - I've never seen an issue with signals, although it's possible.

A big part of the problem is that the high junction/contact resistance of the steel contact heats up and then the plastic supports get soft and the whole assembly looses tension, raising the contact resistance even further, which then heats up more. This cycle occurs until the actual contact point begins to arc.

Not a flash design... :confused:

So if steel isn't the contact material- what would I be soldier to strengthen the connection?

First step I'll try is alcohol/contact.

Yeh dont' think its' the stalk- as the side indicator _always_ works

The tail lamp housing is held in by three nuts, 10 mm as I recall. You can directly see all of the contact points, and you can see if there are any pits from arcing.

If it was an easy thing, no pits, then you should have fixed it already by replacing the bulb(s). The pit in my car was hard to see until I took the tail lamp out of the car.

I'm a bit confused because you said there is a error message on the On Board Display, but that the turn indicators don't work right. The common link in the turn indicators and the error display is the ground wire to the tail lamps. Pull the cover around the harness back a little and see where the BRN wire is, then look at the actual contact inside of the connector on both the vehicle side and the tail lamp side of the connector and see if the contact of the BRN wire is burnt. My kid had an E46 what would give a fast blink for several blinks, then settle in and blink right. She had a burnt ground (BRN) wire that is common to all of the tail lamp circuits, and is the only thing that would give the message for a tail lamp fail and a fast blink on the turn light. You can check for this without removing the tail lamp housing, but you will likely need to have the housing out to affect a repair.

The solder fix is a bit of a kludge - but it does usually work.

https://xoutpost.com/attachments/x5-...2-19.14.22.jpg

See this post..

https://xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-forums/...ation-fix.html

From this thread...

https://xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-forums/...ation-fix.html

Solder kludge helpful but more important to make sure the metal is not too depressed into melted plastic. A pad of solder is WAY better than steel. Use silver solder


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro