Center brake light

[gareth82]

Hi, today check brake lights came on, half the centre brake light is out, I haven't had a chance to look at it but are these a standard bulb and are they easy enough to replace?

Many thanks

[X5Sport]

LED assembly.

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do ... g=63&fg=25

Pre-facelift ones are Red, post are the White (as in clear LED case) - and not cheap. Not sure if you can get them anywhere but a dealer but then I've never looked.

If you've only lost a section it may be a wiring issue rather than the whole unit. Defo worth checking power is on all the correct places and the earths are clean.

[gareth82]

Thanks for the reply, I will remove the plastic panel inside the boot. Tomorrow to see what's going on

Thanks

[gareth82]

Has anyone removed panel to gain access to centre brake light? What way is it removed? There is no screws on so I assume its held on with clips but thought I would ask on here before pulling on the panel incase I destroy something.

Any help is mush appreciated

[fenj66]

hi mate, i had the side and bottom back window panels out last month to fit my reverse camera.
to take off the top panel you must first remove the 2 side panels. i did this by gently inserting a big/wide screwdriver between the plastic panel and the metal body underneath.
start from the bottom and work your way up to the top. there are spring clips to prize out of there slots in the body - they come out pretty easy.
when the side is loose it has to be pulled out sidways from the top plastic trim. i didnt remove the top myself but it looked like its done just the same way.

refitting - make sure the spring retainers are either still in the slots, or attached to the plastic sticky out bits on the back and work your way backwards pushing home by hand.

hope this helps

[gareth82]

Fantastic that should make it easy enough.

Many thanks

Sent from my HTC HD2 using Tapatalk

[gareth82]

Hi i have removed the panel to gain access to the center brake light but haven't a clue how to get at it. I nearly looks like the spoiler needs removed but i doubt that's the case. Does anyone know how to get at it once panels have been removed?

Thanks



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[X5Sport]

See if this helps you out:

http://www.xoutpost.com/articles/x5/lig ... mw-x5.html

....and yes you do have to remove the upper part of the spoiler - deep breath, count to 100 and

[bullethead]

[quote=""X5Sport""]LED assembly.

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do ... g=63&fg=25

Pre-facelift ones are Red, post are the White (as in clear LED case) - and not cheap. Not sure if you can get them anywhere but a dealer but then I've never looked.

If you've only lost a section it may be a wiring issue rather than the whole unit. Defo worth checking power is on all the correct places and the earths are clean.[/quote]
Mines pre facelift and white from new.... Soz

[Sanj]

Yeah we saw this on a couple of X's at the last meet - facelifts come with white (mine) and red (Jeegnesh's)...

[X MAN]

[quote=""X5Sport""]See if this helps you out:

http://www.xoutpost.com/articles/x5/lig ... mw-x5.html

....and yes you do have to remove the upper part of the spoiler - deep breath, count to 100 and [/quote]


As X5Sport said earlier the spoiler needs to be removed,

This might help with the head scratching/banging

[gareth82]

Thanks all for your help this has been a massive help, the question is, if I am going to the hassle of removing spolier should I order a brake light first or whats the chances of a bad connection causing half the light to be out?

Think I will open a beer after finding out the extend of work in this lol

Thanks

[X5Sport]

Half unit failures have been reported elsewhere which tends to point towards a signal or power issue.

It probably is a bad connection given there are a load of LEDs on each side of the lamp. Whether it's a corroded +ve or -ve you won't know without taking it to bits. I don't know that the OEM price for the LED light unit is, but I bet it won't be cheap. I've no idea what the unit looks like inside, or how power is fed to it. There are a range of possibilites for the actual cause of the fault. i assume this is a non-repair item as far as the Dealer is concerned, even if you can actually fix it with the right bits? Does anyone have a wiring diagram for the X5? I'm wondering if there's a control module that powers the lamp and maybe has a 'fail safe' mode with two feeds, one to each half?