Tailight Fix

Both of my Xenon headlights were flickering and my rear left brake light was out.

Even though I thought these were completely unrelated, grounding the brown wire in the trunk as described in this thread did the trick!

If you look closely into where the wiring harness plugs in, you can see that the fourth pin has been burned down. This is obviously a bad design by BMW. Someone in Bavaria obviously didn't do their voltage/current measurements properly and use the proper materials!

I'm glad I found this thread, otherwise I would have been changing the ballast or the igniter for no reason!

Has anyone had a problem with this issue coming back? It's been an off again on again problem for me for awhile, and I thought I finally had it working. I didn't have a single issue for almost a year, but I'm starting to get the same problem again. This is starting to becoming a real annoyance. Has anyone has to replace the light harness too in order for this fix to work?

To anyone who upgraded to LED tails..i'm thinking of getting eagle eye LED's. If if do the fix, where do I ground the new wire? Do the eagle eyes have a tab to attach the new ground to? Any advice is appreciated.

Just wanted to thank the OP and everyone for the tail light ground wire rerouting DIY. My dash indicator was on, with no bulbs being out. As expected, the earth colored wire showed severe arcing. Did the DIY, and it looks great.

there was a f*&%ing service bulletin about this?! before i knew about this lovely forum, the dealership "fixed" my flickering xenons by replacing the headlights. twice. once under warranty, and once not. something like $600.

...same dealership i went to in 2005 for repair of a smashed sunroof. they did not even do a good job vacuuming the broken glass out of the car - i kept finding pieces of it. two years later my sunroof broke again. why? leftover broken glass in the tracks.

thanks for the fix. 4 bucks worth of supplies from Canadian Tire and my tail light frustration is gone!

Ok so quick question tho....What if I were to purchase a set of LED tails from Khoalty. Would this get rid of my problem? I have done this fix already and no more dash light but my left tails are still slightly dimmer than the rights..and there all new bulbs. I am deff getting new tailights and seriously considering these LED's, so please any info on how to go about installing that would be awesome. PM if needed

THANK!!! Headlights were flickering..and this solved the problem.

my terminal was pretty corroded...i ended up cutting the wire completely..it was arching a bit still. I did the fix in this thread and all seams to work now but I suppose I should follow the service bulletin and replace the plug completely.

Any advice on whether I should just wait and see? Is there any way to fix the socket? Can I pull the wires out and then fill the corroded ground socket with epoxy or something?

Any extra risk in driving it as it is now?

Thanks for all this great advice...

ok.. so i tried following the fix action but when i checked the wire, it was completely corroded and as you can see in the attached pictures.. i think it destroyed the pin and the connector was arcing.. so i cut the connector nd re-did it and connected it to the mounting spot shown in the "diy fix" in this thread.. but it's still throwing the code.. any advise??

i posted some pics of what i did so if you see that i did something wrong please let me know! thank you!

nevermind - after i turned on and off the car and on again it cleared the code! FIXED

Awesome fix, thank you. My mind is at ease (after 6 months), not having to stare at that stupid burnt bulb indicator...

I had the same issue and planned to use OP's plan. However, I have an E39 (same engine as E46, 325i) with something called a "Third Stoplamp", which is a brake light on my rear window. That bulb turned out to be bad, but the indicator reflected a right rear bulb out.

Originally Posted by jaycard73

To anyone who upgraded to LED tails..i'm thinking of getting eagle eye LED's. If if do the fix, where do I ground the new wire? Do the eagle eyes have a tab to attach the new ground to? Any advice is appreciated.

I'm in this same boat. Prefacelift (6 pin connector--61138369702) with Eagle Eyes retrofit setup. On the Eagle Eyes connector, it spits into two black wires. I think one runs to a resistor and the other to a white semi-transparent connector. I am wondering if I tap two wires into the main ground and then spit off to each of those black wires. I'll need a solution that is easily removable in case I need to unplug the main harness.

Has anyone tried running a tap to the brown ground on the main harness and also to the top bolt that goes through the chassis with the stud from the Eagle Eyes light housing as an additional ground?

I did this last week. Took me about 10 minutes on my lunch break (I am an old Car Audio guy so YMMV). So far I havent had the indicator lights come back on so I am considering this fixed. My plug looked perfectly fine, but I jumped the ground over the molex anyways. I wish I had found this before replacing all 8 lights .

Well, upon closer inspection the rear driver ground shows early signs of melting. I cut the blade off and hooked it to a 16 awg wire and spliced that directly into one of the black grounds of the EE. I also looked closer and noticed how the two black grounds that split from the EE main connector and only one of them really goes anywhere--it goes directly into one of the resistors. The other black wire follows back to a connector but it is an empty ground.

These blue things are posi-lock and posi-taps. Just a temporary measure before my order of connectors and blades get in. I think after get those in and reinstall it, I will be putting an extra ground to the chassis.

So after this fix on the driver side and on the passenger side--well that looks fine but I went ahead and used a posi-tap to the main ground (leaving the main brown ground in the connector as is) and bridged over to the black ground running to the resistor pack as an extra ground.

After both of these temporary fixes, guess what still happens this morning and also on the afternoon drive? I get a bulb out on the front corner passenger turn signal.

I'll have to examine the connectors again for the front tomorrow as well as the bulb bases.

For whomever comes across this thread in the future, if your vehicle is a pre-facelift, the part number for this Siemens connector is partly in the picture. This is the full part number: 61138369702. The part number for the blade that goes into this connector is: 61130006626.

Gotta love this forum. Problem solved. However I did it slightly differently.
Used a tap in, works fine, ran the wire to a crimped eyelet and screwed it into the ground plate with a self drilling/tapping screw. All this I had laying around the shop.

I have the identical problem that SSM1991 described and posted in his work-around. The TSB is quite complex and a bit hard to understand so I did what SSM1991 recommended and I seem to be A-OK now.

I checked the passengers tail light and everything is clean and unburned.

I tried this quick repair, plus checked all the other possible problem areas and my warning light is still on. all my bulbs (both left and license plate) are working. To the best of your knowledge where else might this problem stem from?

I don't have an error, but my driver side turn signal seems to be a little dimmer than the passenger side, and I noticed that part of the connector seemed to be just slightly melted away... I tried cleaning up some corrosion from the connector and it seems to be bright again, but that may be my mind playing tricks on me. I'll definitely do the fix in this thread one of these days.