Look at post 39 and beyond. You will see pics of the problem that is most likely what you have.

http://www.xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-foru...ation-fix.html

Slick and Terminator,

Thanks, I finally figured out what is going on.

This is what is going on. After taking the tail light assembly out nothing looked burnt or corroded at all. It looked great as a matter of fact. However upon further inspection, the harness that plugs into the assembly looked off slightly askew so I looked inside and one of the prongs was completely gone. The brown wire on the outside going into the harness showed bare metal (major fire hazzard btw). The entire prong maybe 5/16 inches long had completely melted. Further inspection showed where it plugs in also showed a small burned spot where this little prong had shorted out. But all in all there was no visible corrosion.

I am not sure if I can take a pic and post it but if I can I will. I have ordered a brand new pair of replacement LED lights but I still have to find the pigtail that I can splice in to the wiring harness. Does BMW sell such a thing or would I need to go to a salvage yard? Any ideas?

Thanks for your help guys. I appreciate it and this forum. I will take pics and try to post but not only am I mechanically challenged but technically so. Thanks

Yea my lights didn't have corrosion either. They had lime burnt spots. Mine were fixable though just like in the link I posted.

Yes I believe you can order the harness connection.
Have you used realoem.com before? Try it out. You should be able to find the harness plug. I will try to check, but I'm on the iPhone right now.

Thanks SlickGT1,

I will look tonight. I forgot about this website. I will keep you posted. Appreciate the insight.

Hey all, finally got things working again, well almost. This is what I did. Since my wife's X5 tail light fried the plug in (both the male and female portions) I figured I would go with suggestions on this forum and go with brand new LED lights. I have a 4.6 that has not had tail light issues so I took the new LED's and installed them on the 4.6 and took those lights out and put them in my wife's 4.4.

All is working well with the 4.4 as I also had to cut the old mail plug out and splice a new one into the wiring.

The new LED's look sharp and all is well except I do not have tail lights or back up lights right now. Brake and blinkers work fine. I was doing this on my lunch hour and suspected the tail and back up light were simply a fuse that I must have blown during the install. I have looked in the fuse box in the glove box and the one on infront of the rear tail light assembly but cannot find the correct fuse. Anyone no where this fuse is located?

Anyone have an idea why after installing these new LED lights that I don't have tail or back up lights. They were working perfectly before and now I even get a "check back lights" message on dash. Thanks in advance for any insight.

haha i knew it was coming....on the 03 4.6you have to switch some bins on your new led lights to get them to work...i had them posted some where...i can't remember where it is now.so please search.

Thanks Mrbmwx5, I looked at it last night with a flash light and sure enough on the tail light plug the new LED lights have the pins in different positions than what the stock plug does. Today if I get a chance I will get my test light out and see if I can figure which one is which. I will search for your posting as well.

Question tho, on the tail light plug there are four wires numbered 1-6. The stock set up only uses four so I just have to figure out which ones I need to move. On the back up lights (the ones on the tail gate) the light harness has two wires but the plug has three pins, is this the same? Do these pins need to be changed also?

Ok I got the tail lights working just fine. Here is what I found. On the stock tail light plug, there are six pins. 1,2, 4,5, are used. 1 is tail light, 4 is blinker, 5 is brake. Not sure what 2 does but it is the heavy brown wire. On the new LED Spyder lights I just purchased they use 2,3,4,5 pins. So since blinkers and brakes were working I swapped pin 1 to pin 3 and now it works fine. For those who have not done this it is a simple swap.

First you take a flat very tiny screwdriver and pop the white snap in piece on the plug off. You have to gently do each side and once it is off it exposes all of the pin wires. Take the same tiny screw driver and push the desired wire in and out from the back side of plug. Viola then simply put it back in the desired slot and snap the white wire holder back in places.

Now does anyone know why the back up lights do not work on the new LED's? I checked and similary the OEM plug has a place for three pins but only uses two pins. The new lights have three. The middle pin is the back up light and I did the same thing as the tail lights, I swapped pin 1 to pin 3 and nothing. Anyone!!!

Figured out my own stupidity. The new LED lights come with new bulbs for the LED's but the back up lights are not LED and did not come with the old style bulb. You can't really tell when they are mounted so after an hour of testing and scratching my head, viola, but in the old bulbs and they work great.

Hope my stupidity helps someone avoid the same mistake.

I don't know if this helps or not...but here is my taillight story of woe.

I bought my 2006 x5 4.4i in Seattle. After about 6 months of ownership I started getting check taillight error messages. The specific taillight was the rear drivers side. drove me nuts. I replaced the bulbs cleaned the connectors sprayed that electric cleaner on it. Nothing fixed the intermittent check taillight error message.

Finally I just learned to live with it. Message would appear I would adjust the bulb and carry on. Fast forward. Moved from Seattle to Maryland. Had one incident of check taillight error since I have been here, which has been almost two years.

I think the problem was the almost constant moisture in the Seattle area.
The DMV is humid in the summer, but I find it ironic I am not having the issue I had back in Seattle. Although I have done nothing different with the taillight.

I see you are in NM...that's a dry heat I think. So I can't really comment on what your issue may be. Only relate my own experience.