OEM LED tailights and using resistors

Hey guys,

Has anyone had any experience with fitting OEM tailights using just resistor packs (that came with Eagle Eyes for example)?

I've had my Eagle Eye tailights for 3 years now, and it's always worked fine, but prefer to upgrade to OEM for quality and interior fitment reasons.

Am I able to avoid doing the LCM retrofit (it's a lot of arsing around for my late-2001 car) and do a straight swap, using the resistors that came with the Eagle Eyes?

Any help would be appreciated! Thanks in advance.

with the OEM led tail lights your going to need the wiring harness kit to even make them even light up, and yea i would think just using wire taps to the blinker and brake lights would make them not throw errors or rapid blinker, i would try it and see how it goes.

heres a link for the harness
http://www.ecstuning.com/BMW-E46-325...3650/ES161762/

Oh good stuff! I didn't know this existed. Thanks for that.

Does anyone else have any insight into this?

I'm using the EE resitor packs with OEM LED tails.

Just get BMW Scanner 1.4.0 for $32 and code the cold/warm check to off, this is what they do on the cars with factory LED's.

Originally Posted by jfoj

Just get BMW Scanner 1.4.0 for $32 and code the cold/warm check to off, this is what they do on the cars with factory LED's.

Not exactly. The cold/warm checks are disabled, but the other difference is that the LEDs are controlled via PWM rather than simply sending a lower voltage. If you look at a car with factory LEDs or properly retrofitted LEDs and compared it with one that uses resistors or simply disabled cold/warm checks, you'll notice the latter has a slight flicker.

The best way to do an LED retrofit is to add "+LEDH" to your vehicle order and then recode the LSZ with a blank FSW_PSW.MAN. The +LEDH in the vehicle order will tell the system to code the car for an LED retrofit.

Originally Posted by TerraPhantm

If you look at a car with factory LEDs or properly retrofitted LEDs and compared it with one that uses resistors or simply disabled cold/warm checks, you'll notice the latter has a slight flicker.

This is true, and I took a video before and after the coding. It's quite noticeable.

I had OEM LED tail lamps for over 5 years installed by me with resistors(not EE) on my 2000 323Ci. I had to do this before any aftermarket LEDs were ever made. I was one of the first in the USA to do this back in the day. Search the Lighting Forum for the thread made by Wendant, he pioneer the way.

I have used a combination of power resistors, capacitors and relay to overcome the flickering/bulb-out warning on the OEM Led tails. This was 4 years ago, until I was able to do it the proper way with a new LCM. Cars pre- 09/01 can't have the installed LCM recoded.


If a new LCM was not that expensive, I would have gone the recode route without second thought. I was able however to purchase a NEW LCM over ebay for $50 which I had it coded with Autologic for the LED. No issues at all.

Originally Posted by paraklas

I have used a combination of power resistors, capacitors and relay to overcome the flickering/bulb-out warning on the OEM Led tails. This was 4 years ago, until I was able to do it the proper way with a new LCM. Cars pre- 09/01 can't have the installed LCM recoded.


If a new LCM was not that expensive, I would have gone the recode route without second thought. I was able however to purchase a NEW LCM over ebay for $50 which I had it coded with Autologic for the LED. No issues at all.

^this!

But I removed that setup after finding on long trips the resistors and heatsink was heating to a point where I found it unsafe, thus using the EE resitor packs which seem to dissipate heat/power better as they don't heat up.

PS. it was inside a IP6 rated case, but the outside of the case started showing signs of melting

Originally Posted by paraklas

I have used a combination of power resistors, capacitors and relay to overcome the flickering/bulb-out warning on the OEM Led tails. This was 4 years ago, until I was able to do it the proper way with a new LCM. Cars pre- 09/01 can't have the installed LCM recoded.


If a new LCM was not that expensive, I would have gone the recode route without second thought. I was able however to purchase a NEW LCM over ebay for $50 which I had it coded with Autologic for the LED. No issues at all.

Duuuuude holy schnit! I bet you could roast marshmallows with that setup.