If the contacts on the light assembly are seriously corroded you can fix it by taking out the light assembly and carefully floating a layer of solder over the gaps in the foil contact patch on the light assembly. The original foil layer is very thin and it appeared on mine that a weak contact point created a hot spot and burned through the foil.

Be careful when floating solder that you do not melt the plastic behind the foil layer. I had repaired my light a few years ago and haven't had a problem since.

or you can save yourself a lot of time and just lightly bend the contacts out to have them apply more pressure when installed.

thx for all your solutions in this thread.
heres a link to the rear tailight repair

http://www.bmwmotorsports.org/pdf/e5...y%20Repair.pdf