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Car Forum / BMW Cars / February 2007

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e46 left tail lights dimmer than right??

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paul.kinney@blueyonder.co.uk - 30 Jan 2007 19:24 GMT
A strange one this...

After many months of intermitant warnings on the dash that my RHS tail
light was faulty I had a poke around and dicovered that if a wiggled
the wires entering the connector block for the tail light cluster (not
tail light on boot lid) theey got 50% brighter and the dash warning
light went out, sounds like I fixed it.....great....but NO.

Now the RHS tail lights are brighter than the LHS, I tried swapping
the bulbs over but it made not difference. I've had a go at wiggling
the wires as I did with the RHS but nothing changes.

The wires look in good condition, no scorching or damage of any type.

Has anyone had a similar problem? I suspect theres no simple answer to
this but we can always live in hope.

While I'm here.....my LHS rear fog light does'nt work either.
It's a single filement bulb that brightens when the fog lights are
switched on, the RHS works fine but the LHS just stays dim as it
doubles up as a tail light (not connected to previous tail light
problem).
I thought it may be a LHS problem only so i checked the front fog but
their both working fine, so it just seems that theres no extra power
getting to the rear LHS fog light to make it work.

Any thoughts anyone?

Thanks for reading

k-factor.
SharkmanBMW - 30 Jan 2007 19:52 GMT
similar...
I have had to replace the bulb housing on the right tail so far (it would
show bulb failure intermittently with no bulb failure, restarting the car
would fix it for awhile - common post on e46fanatics.).
and
at one point after that change, the left was dim... I unplugged the socket
and noticed corrosion on the wires, replugged solidly and all is well.

I could not clean the corrosion and one wire was pulling out of the plug, so
now the plug is screwed up on mine and if it fails again I will have to get
it rewired with a new plastic end.

The dealer told me bulb housings were a very commonly changed part on e46.

>A strange one this...
>
[quoted text clipped - 27 lines]
>
> k-factor.

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paul.kinney@blueyonder.co.uk - 06 Feb 2007 13:12 GMT
After further investigation I found that there is less voltage going
to the LHS tail lights than the RHS, the LHS is getting 2.49V & the
RHS is getting 2.53V, I guess theres a serious problem in the wiring
loom somewhere.

Since my original post I've spoke to a BMW Technician and he confirmed
what you said sharkmanbmw that the tail lights are a common fault on
the E46's
adder1969 - 06 Feb 2007 15:44 GMT
On Feb 6, 1:12 pm, paul.kin...@blueyonder.co.uk wrote:
> After further investigation I found that there is less voltage going
> to the LHS tail lights than the RHS, the LHS is getting 2.49V & the
> RHS is getting 2.53V, I guess theres a serious problem in the wiring
> loom somewhere.

There sure is.
Ulf - 06 Feb 2007 16:36 GMT
> After further investigation I found that there is less voltage going
> to the LHS tail lights than the RHS, the LHS is getting 2.49V & the
> RHS is getting 2.53V, I guess theres a serious problem in the wiring
> loom somewhere.

That can't be even close to correct. At 2.5v the light wouldn't be dim,
it would be off! Around 12v is the correct voltage, any lower than that
(with the engine running) is too low.

> Since my original post I've spoke to a BMW Technician and he confirmed
> what you said sharkmanbmw that the tail lights are a common fault on
> the E46's

I had a problem with the taillights on my old E30, but spraying some of
that universal stuff on the contacts fixed it.

Ulf
 
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