Rear LED's
 

I tried replacing my stock bulbs last night with 18 SMD LED's off eBay with no luck. The bulbs that actually fit were either faulty or got zapped instantly by the X. I love the smell of fried electrics. I think I may have f'ed one of the sockets in my driver tail too :-( I am not using capacitors so I think the amperage is too high for them. Kid's don't do this at home. Not sure why my turn signals up front don't have this problem, I haven't yet spliced in the capacitors.

I decided I am going to go with the Smoked Spider/Sonar LED tail lights off eBay. People seem to be generally happy with them and I love they way they look. My only concern is if any of the LED's go out but I suppose that is unlikely and they are inexpensive enough (< $200) to replace if they do.

eBay - New & used electronics, cars, apparel, collectibles, sporting goods & more at low prices

Good decision! The red smoked/clear tails will look awesome on your black X5. There is a older thread with some pretty good photos of those lights on a black X5. I'm guessing you saw my recent post with photos so I won't repost any here.

You will need some stealth or LED bulbs for the turn signals though. The new set will have orange bulbs installed so you will have the "egg yolk" look unless you change those bulbs.

Well depending on what bulb it takes or fits I have the silver stealth bulbs from my OEM stock clear/white corner tail lights plus a set of amber LED SMD's. I am a little hesitant to use the LEDs after what happened last night lol. I don't want to blow these new ones up too.

Not sure I saw the black X pics with smoked sonar - link?

Your silver stealth bulbs will work just fine. I reused my Philips SilverVisions.

Here's your link.

Yeah that looks pretty money - the one I remember seeing was a 4.4i and I love the look.

Yeah I will prob just re-use the silverVisions. I assume that if I were to try and use my LED lights I will still need a capacitor.

Lol, If you look into the bulbs required for BMW's, you will notice almost all of them are Single filaments. Thus meaning, that the LCM switches circuits to make 6-Volts for Running lights and 12-Volts for flashing/turn/brake lights. You cant properly use LED in the X5. I bought a set of the smoked LED tails only to find out later on that the LED's in one tail stopped working completely. I then bought yet another set thinking it was just a bad batch. Same problem happened again. I investigated a little further and found out about the 6 to 12 volt issues. They might have fixed the issues with the newer LED tails because I bought some of the first runs they sold... hope this helps

BTW Dont for get your capacitor with the LED Tails

Ahh that would explain some things ... strangely enough I put two of the Amber LED's in the middle hole (stop/running ligh location) on accident and they both worked fine while the white ones burned out instantly. I thought the Spider/Sonar's were 100% plug and play... I still need to use capacitors? According to this post he says you only need them on '02 and newer IF they are flickering.

The worst that could happen with installing capacitors is wasting your money. If I remember correctly radio shack sells them for like $2/ea. I would install them regardless. If not for led issues then for the "check tail bulb" message. Just my opinion on the matter. I will check the ohms comming from a stock bulb and report back with the correct resistance unless someone else chimes in and says it lol

You can search the forum to find the right capacitors. I got a couple for the front turn signal LED's I installed.

Here is what the eBay seller said:

Dear znwd,

The taillights come with built in resistors to prevent rapid flashing. Thanks!

Best Regards,
Sony S



:::a0KA0000004jaD7MAI:::

- zsracing

That is the seller I bought my tails from!