Upgraded my tail lights to have all four light for brake. I couldn't understand why BMW put a dual filament light in the center spot and shorted the brake filament to ground so I did a crazy simple mod to my tail lamp assembly to make all four lights operate the same as shown in this video:

https://vimeo.com/136070687

(My 7 yr. old is operating the lights makes for some humorous bits)

I actually made the mod in effort to prepare for using LED lamps for brake: by keeping the Incan brake filament of the 1157 lamp I don't need to add a wasteful resistor kind of defeats the purpose of the efficiency of LED when you add a resistor to waste 100% of that saved power in the form of heat.

My e53 is an '01 but the previous owner replaced the stock taillights with 2012 design (maybe to have the clear top lens)? Worked to my benefit for sure: far more complicated to have to split the circuit for the brake filament on the stock assembly like my wife's x5.

The whole brake light upgrade snowballed from what I thought was just a simple lamp replacement on her 2001 x5.


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Ordered a set of Nt555's from Nitto Tire|4WO. Had good experience with the Motivo so I went with another Nitto but this time I chose their UHP summer tire. Let's see if I will enjoy a spirited drive with these tires.

Put a new battery in today. What a pita spot for a such heavy battery.

I changed my old pusher fan , in the rain , got drenched.
started car up , bloody thing didn't move
put on AC walked round to front of car, still nothing ,now I don't know if these things will only work when the AC needs it to cool the ac down more , or they come on regardless on this, and just when the ac button is pressed in ,
oh fuse ok ,
£130 quid lighter
but im damn annoyed, so much im having a beer !!!!!!

some reason I cant edit my post , was going to put , am I not leaving it long enough, do they take a few minutes to kick in , or are they instant?

Mine doesn't work the same way others claim it works. But it does come on when it is really hot outside.

oh, its 13 degrees and rain here , might be a reason why then :)

Changed the oil, flushed and bled the PS fluid because it seemed iffy since the rack replacement, and recharged AC because it wasn't as strong as I was used to in my e65.

Top off ( engine motor oil) : 2 Qts of Total Quartz 9000 Energy 5W40
Seems like I'm burning 1 qt per 2200 miles

That's really not out of the ordinary for BMW in my experience.