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Thread: Headlight woes

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Dec 2018
    Location
    San Diego
    Posts
    4
    My Cars
    2002 BMW 330ci

    Headlight woes

    Hi, I'm a new member and first time BMW owner with a somewhat difficult electrical problem I am hoping you all can help me with.

    This was a family members car 2002 330CI that I have been given because I am the car nut in the family. Over the last several years the car has been regularly experiencing headlight failures. Left or right headlights fail every few months with no rhyme or reason to which side. My Nephew's mechanic has fixed this numerous times at great expense by replacing the headlight, the ballast, or the ignitor. It is a different component that has failed each time. Sometime more than one component. These parts are pricy and I don't want to continue to pay to fix what is clearly a symptom and not the problem.

    Today was my first day of ownership and the passenger side headlight does not work. I completely removed the headlight housing, inspected all connections, cleaned them with electronics cleaner, put a small amount of dielectric grease on all connectors, replaced the obviously burnt out bulb and put everything back together. The light still does not work...

    I was going to swap components from the drivers side and determine whether it was the ballast or the igniter that has also failed, but... Given the history I am confident that within a few short months I will be back at square one with a failed headlight again.

    How should I test the system. perhaps it is getting too much or too little power stressing the components? Or what else could be causing this recurring problem? Could it be as simple as a bad ground?

    Is it possible to convert the system to a non xeon (simpler and cheaper) system? The car only has 88K miles and although it spent a few years in the Florida sun it still has a lot of life left in it and is a fun car to drive. But the sad reality is that it is not worth a lot of money and I am not willing to endlessly spend hundreds of $ on headlights every few months. So I need to find the root cause of this problem or change the system to a simpler cheaper system.

    another option I considered is to rewire the daytime running lights (they work fine) to come on with or instead of the headlights. Although perhaps not 100% legal this would greatly reduce the risk of being pulled over for not having both headlights on. If the daytime running lights are not bright enough perhaps I could replace the fog lights with driving lights and operate the car with the DRL and driving lights the driving at night. This is a kludgy work around but perhaps a cost affective solution. If the proper solution remains allusive.

    Is this a problem anyone else has had? any advice on how to test or where to look?

    Thanks

    Jimmy

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jan 2016
    Location
    Ca
    Posts
    6,981
    My Cars
    2001 525it
    Swapping parts is the only real way to narrowing down what's faulty. The main connectors look like the would just plug in to a non xenon headlight, though I don't know any body who has tried it

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Dec 2018
    Location
    San Diego
    Posts
    4
    My Cars
    2002 BMW 330ci
    I searched a bit more on the forum and it seems I could swap in OEM halogen lights, the easiest way is to swap the entire housing, but then I will need to reprogram the LCM. I imagine that is something I would have to pay someone with the proper equipment to do. Not sue what to expect that to cost.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Dec 2018
    Location
    San Diego
    Posts
    4
    My Cars
    2002 BMW 330ci
    I determined it was the Xenon bulb that was bad by swapping bulbs with the other side. Upon further investigation I discovered a previous mechanic had modified the front turn signal bulb to fit the socket on the side with the failed Xenon bulb. I have not studied a wiring diagram to this level of detail yet but thought perhaps that kludge had caused problems with the circuit and caused the Xenon bulb to burn out. I replaced both bulbs and am hoping that my headlight woes are behind me. I was reluctant to spend the $100 on another Xenon bulb, but since I found a problem with the system and am optimistic I decided to try replacing the bulb one more time.

    Anyone ever heard of having the wrong turn signal bulb installed affecting the Xenon headlights??

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