e46 XENON Headlight Housing Repair
 

The other day I was involved in a minor accident, which cracked the lens on one of my headlights and broke the housing clips on both of the headlight assemblies. The housings are now unusable, and need to be replaced. However, all of the electronics, ballasts and bulbs, are fine. I have been searching around on the web, and haven't been able to find a replacement housing. Everyone seems to want to sell the entire module. Has anyone had any luck rebuilding OEM xenon headlights?

I'm looking at realoem right now.

http://realoem.com/bmw/diagrams/l/e/307.png

See how that whole back portion is greyed out and there is not part exploded from it? That means there is no indivdual part for this area. I hate to give you the bad news. Maybe you can find unbroken ones at a junkyard or something.

unfortunately you wont be able to just buy the housing; however, go on the for sale section, and you'll see some people are posting this for sale there..

WDE46, that is what I have noticed as well. However, in the past I have found parts that are not sold individually through BMW, which a third party has manufactured on their own. A popular example is the rebuild kit for the locking cylinder for the door. I was hoping someone had done something similar for this part as well. If that's not the case, then I will probably need to call up some scrap yards.

True. I don't think that's the case for the xenon headlight housing though. I haven't seen them around, but then again I only look at parts for F/L coupes, which use very different lights.

As I don't know how badly your housings are damaged, I don't know if this would help - but BMW does offer a tab repair kit - see http://www.ecstuning.com/BMW-E46-330...ghts/ES172708/. They also offer replacement lenses - see http://www.ecstuning.com/BMW-E46-330...adlights/Lens/.

Good luck,

Luke

It's kind of funny, considering the number of aftermarket headlight assemblies on the market you know third parties are manufacturing the housing, or at least one similar.

Thanks for the feedback.

Indeed. During my brief search I have turned up nothing though. :(

Luke,

Thanks for the link, but it looks like this is for pre-facelift models, which contrary to the website beginning production towards the end of Q1 2002. Unfortunately, it seems to be a common problem for suppliers to indicate the wrong year. I am not sure why...

Fair enough... one last try :) They do seem to have a similar kit for facelifted headlights - http://www.ecstuning.com/BMW-E46-330...Kits/ES172900/

Luke

As stated you will have to either get the tab replacement kit or used headlights from the classifieds or eBay.

Has anyone ever tried sticking the OEM bi-xenon parts into a DEPO unit? parts4euro has a DEPO "Smoked Angel Eye Projector Headlights" set for $369 without the bulbs and ballasts. If I can stuff the OEM parts into this unit, that might be my best bet. Anyone tried this or had experience with both units?

http://www.parts4euro.com/DCShop/pro...products_id=97

if you are planning on expending $369 on those headlight and swap everything. you mind as well buy some cheap used headlights and do a complete retrofit with better projectors.. to answer your questions I believe they are interchangeable only with AL xenon.. there was a guy here who did this (search for xenon retrofit)

^ It's the first sticky.

True enough, problem is used OEM units aren't that cheap, or at least I haven't found the cheap ones. Most retrofits seem to go from halogens to xenon, or factory xenon to xenon with improved projectors. This vehicle has bi-xenon from the factory, and from what I have read, any retrofit is a downgrade from the components I already have. My current units are AL bi-xenon.

factory bi-xenon does not mean better. it just means that it can do low and high beam. The bixenon projector is the same as the regular oem xenon..

I'm not sure if ever looked at the for sale section as suggested, There are more many posts like that

http://forum.e46fanatics.com/showthread.php?t=952827
http://forum.e46fanatics.com/showthread.php?t=948323