The Mystery of the Fog Lights
 

Today was finally a day I could wash my car. No snow, no rain, 50 degrees.
I noticed (without an indicator on the dash) the passenger side fog light bulb was out. No problem, I thought, I'll go buy a new one and install it. It takes all of 5 minutes on a 2011 X5. You pop out these little adornments and you can easily reach you hand in and twist a new bulb.
And I did and it worked. Then as i was walking back, I noticed that now the DS fog light was out. Coincidence? I doubted it. I tested the bulb with a multimeter and found no resistance which meant the filament was unbroken. I also tested the voltage and was getting like 3 volts out of the DS. YET when I put the new bulb in the DS, it worked. So I went back and bought another bulb. Same as the original 55W, And now NEITHER side works.
So I called a buddy who works at BMW and he said it could be the FLM which I believe stands for the Floor Lighting Module and there are no fuses that operate the fog lights (these are the two on the bottom inserted into the front bumper.
AND as it turns out, there have been problems with the FLMs and BMW has extended the warranty to 12 years and 125000 miles.
My car is going in Tuesday, and I will report back, but just in case anyone is having gremlins in their lighting, be aware that there is a "soft recall" out there if you get as perplexed as me.
ed in NJ

typical failure of the FRM is total failure, which causes windows not to roll up/down, doors won't lock, blinkers not working....

Just to be clear: when the wheel is turned, only one side of the fog lights will illuminate. Did you explicitly turn on the fog lights?

Yes, I explicitly turned on fogs, and the wheels were straight ahead.
But I will do a quick recheck.
I don't ever recall only one being on when the wheel is turned though.
We are discussing the fogs in the bumper like the arrows are pointing to below, correct?
http://i1201.photobucket.com/albums/...E70%20fogs.png

yeah those....
I don't know, doesn't make much sense. Unless somehow the steering angle sensor is messed up, but I think you get a 4x4 warning on the dash.

FRM failure causes pretty much all lights to not function.

As stated above, the fog light will turn on/off when the headlights are active (either turned on manually or after darkness has arrived when in "auto" mode) and the wheel is turned beyond a certain amount. I believe the purpose of this is to add a little extra brightness to the dark area that one is turning the car into. So if you turn the wheel to the right, the right fog turns on, and the left fog should stay off. Center the wheel, and they should both be off. Turn to the left, and the left fog goes on and the right is off.

If the fog lights are turned on (and the green indicator light is present on the dash) then the fogs are on, and stay on regardless of how the wheel is turned.

All fixed. The DS bulb connector has a clip broken on one side so it would not seat completely. Replaced the connector and now both lights working as designed. Thanks for the feedback

Now put some LED bulbs or an HID kit like i did and watch the light output double :) HID kit needs code cancellers btw.
I been running my kit for about 2 years, no issues.

Which would you prefer: HID or LED? I did HID on my wife's XC90 and liked it; but I think I prefer the maintenance free aspect of LED.


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I have HID but LED is the way to go, i put a nice set of LED H11 headlight bulbs in my wife's camry and they made a huge difference in visible light so when we sell that car soon, i will put those in the X5's fogs. These one from Amazon.

Which LED bulbs did you purchase? I went to the site and they have a lot of them.