Great info.... exactly what I'm looking for.

However, I'm curious, does anyone know wether this will covered by CPO warranty??

Well, I did BOTH lights and used generous amounts of solder but I am still getting the error. I don't know now if I have bad holders. I cleaned up the contacts on all of them and bent the tabs a little for better contact. Any ideas or am I going to have to spring for LED units? :tsk:

How about the bulb contact itself? Did you clean that up too? Pencil eraser or fine sandpaper should do the trick.

These tail lights are a pita. Nice work engineering team! :confused:

Thanks Kirk. I'll try that. I used a Dremel with wire brush on the bulb holder's outside contacts but not the bulb itself and the contacts inside of the holder.

I spent tonight replacing yet another (number 7?) window regulator. :mad:

I've got a different issue that I can't seem to fix while using search. I've got an 01 X5, bought some stock taillights off an 02+ X5 w/ the clear blinker corners. They work great, but the upper bulb on each side is staying on as if it's a euro brake light. The lower stays dim and brighten up as expected when pushing the brake pedal, but I need to fix the upper lights before I get pulled or highbeamed constantly.

If anyone wants to pay for shipping on a set of stock, yellow cornered lights since they're having issues related to the specific topic on this thread, feel free to PM me since mine work just fine.

Whoever wrote that guide, many many thanks.

I followed the guide and removed the passenger (left) side assembly and saw the corrosion. I cleaned up the area after continuity testing and finding an open on the bottom part of the contact. All working fine now!

Thanks a million!!!

Kudos! I did the solder job on my drivers side brake light (lower of two on that side) and it worked like a charm. Until then I would jiggle the socket and the error message would go away for a day or two, then come back on. With the solder the error has been gone now for two weeks (and counting). I don't think that it will come back for at least two years (based on the clean solder)

Did this as well before reading the guide. It was sort of common sense for me. I didn't sand anything, but managed to get a decent amount of solder through the hole to create a metal support. Didn't have to take the gasket off or anything else. We will see how long that last.

I'm not going to read through 5 pages of posts, I'm just going to say how I fixed it on my X5 and 2 of my e36's in the past.

If you take out the tail light and look at the plate that the bulb that is not working connects to, you will see corrosion at the point where the bulb holder makes connection with the metal plate.

All you have to do is drill/drimmel out all of the corrosion. I drimmelled both of my e36's and drilled my e53's. Once it is clean, use some thicker paper/thinner cardboard and put it between the metal plate and the tail light.

Then use solder and fill the hole. The paper/cardboard will keep it from dripping through to the plastic or down into the tail light. Once dry, drimmel it smooth.

Everything should work as long as the bulb holder is not corroded. I have drimmelled the contacts on them before just to help, but if they are too bad they aren't that much to replace.

I used to have pictures of the whole process, if I can find them I'll post it.

Hope this helps someone out there.

Well... it looks like someone already posted that lol.

Here's where I posted it 7 years ago, however I must have deleted the pictures off my server.

E36 "brake light failure" cause corrosion DIY FIX - DTMPower BMW Forum