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      05-21-2018, 01:05 PM   #1
s14_kev
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2008 M3 - Intermittent low beam issues

My new-to-me E90 M3 is having intermittent low beam issues. About 50% of the time, the passenger low beam will not fire when I turn on the headlights. The other 50% of the time they work perfectly fine.

If they do fail to fire, I get the warning on the dash saying there is a low-beam malfunction. Sometimes I can "recover" by toggling the lights on/off a few times, but this is not fool-proof. There have been cases where they refuse to fire at all and I have to drive with 1 light out. In general, once they are on they stay on for the remainder of the drive, however I think once the passenger light actually turned off mid-drive when it was working fine.

There is no discoloration or dimness in the light output when they are working.

Has anyone experienced this in their car before?
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      05-21-2018, 03:20 PM   #2
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Rather than throw money at the issue you can try swapping the ballast first from the right side or if you know someone with an ista you can run a test plan on the FRM2 and check for any shorts.
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      05-21-2018, 03:20 PM   #3
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did you check the connections?
next would be to check the ballast
ballasts do fail over time
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      05-21-2018, 04:42 PM   #4
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bulb/ballast failing or on it's way out. swap them from side to side and see if the failure follows (bulb or ballast).
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      05-22-2018, 10:37 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by azndrunk74 View Post
bulb/ballast failing or on it's way out. swap them from side to side and see if the failure follows (bulb or ballast).
I checked the connections and swapped the driver/passenger bulbs today. I only got to go on a quick test drive but both lights were working afterwards. I will report back if/when one of them fails so I should be able to narrow down if it's a bulb issue or ballast issue.

Thanks all for the suggestions!
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      05-22-2018, 11:21 PM   #6
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I don’t know anything about lights but welcome back Kevin
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      06-18-2018, 04:42 PM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kevin///mlee View Post
I checked the connections and swapped the driver/passenger bulbs today. I only got to go on a quick test drive but both lights were working afterwards. I will report back if/when one of them fails so I should be able to narrow down if it's a bulb issue or ballast issue.

Thanks all for the suggestions!
After I swapped the bulbs left to right, the issue seemed to have disappeared for a few of weeks, but I just got a low beam error again this week. The issue seems to have followed the bulbs (used to occur on the right side, now occurs on left). Looks like I'll be ordering some new bulbs here shortly!
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      06-18-2018, 05:45 PM   #8
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Had a similar issue and it was caused by the previous owners non OEM lights. Went back to oem and that solved the problem.
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      06-18-2018, 07:33 PM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by timothy2001 View Post
Had a similar issue and it was caused by the previous owners non OEM lights. Went back to oem and that solved the problem.
Yup, same here. Dealing with non-OEM bulbs from PO. Thanks for confirming OEM bulbs fixed the issue for you
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