Re: Rear lights upgrade question? (archive)

It's all deppends on the rear lights that you want to raplace with. If you are talking about replacing your lights with 1999-2001 lights, then I heard that you can do it, but there it requires some re-wiring. On Tuesday I went to the dealer and ordered clear corners and clear side markers (on the fender). Those should be very easy to replace. If you want to replace your rear lights with the clear ones from 1995-1998, you can get it from the dealer. They cost arround $200 and they do not require any re-wiring. If you will take a look at the clear lights from the delaer 1995-1998 the only difference will be is the yellow will be white. The red portion of the light will be the same as the one that you have right now. If you saw the lights from 1999-2001, the red part and the clear part is much clearer then the ones from 1995-1998 dealer purchased. I personally see no reason to get 1995-1998 clear set from the dealer, because they look just a little different then the ones that you have. If you are going to find a solllution how to connect and re-wire for the lights from 1999-2001, please let me know. I personally want to replace my lights with the ones from 2001, but I do not know how to re-wire it.

I have a '95 and did the complete light conversion, tail lights, corners and side lights. The best source for the lights is circlebmw.com. The rear lights were about $134 each, side lights about $12.50 each, and the front corners about $33 each. The tail lights will plug right in and work fine, but there is an extra bulb in the new ones with an extra prong in the wire harness. Just plug it in, the extra light won't work, but will be handy as a spare should you need one for a quick change sometime. The wire harnessess still match up fine, as they each have the potential for 6 prongs, but your harness in the car will have only 5 wires(prongs)in it, and the new light will have all six wires(prongs) in it. As for the side lights in the fenders, they pop in and out very easily for a quick change. The corner lights (actually referred to as side lights), there is a slight complication which has a very easy fix. The new corner lights in front come with a wire harness adapter that will allow you to connect them to your car's wire harness as the new corner lights have a different wire harness that otherwise would not match up. If you connect these to your car, you will get a "check side lights" message. The reason is the new lights use a single element bulb, and your original lights have dual elements. Very easy fix---just buy 2 dual element amber bulbs at the auto parts store for about a buck each (identical to your originals, except your originals are clear, and you need amber, so take one of your originals to compare to ones in store). Remove LIGHT SOCKETS from all the lights, and install your original light sockets with new amber dual element bulbs in your new clear lenses and all will work fine. I might add, that the directions for removing and replacing these lights is not very good. There is a little plastic cap on fender under hood that pops off, then with a long phillips head screw driver, you need to find the screws, and unscrew a few turns to loosen lights and they should pull right out. Also, my car is a 95, some of the this might be different for 96 or newer, I just don't know, as my only experience is with my '95. Good luck

Circle BMW

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