Please Help: Low Beam Malfunction

[Merlin_83]

Greetings,

Before I get flamed and yelled at...I did searches amongst the forums, and could not find anything useful to help me.

I turn to my ///M brethren...First issue ever had with the car in 5 years....got in car this afternoon to go home and got 'low beam malfunction' error message on the nav screen. What's weird is the high beam also does not work....so is it the control module aka the ballast ? This is just on the drivers side.

Details:

1) It rained all day today in Oregon..uhg..now it won't stop until next summer. Have no idea why people would want to move here...it sucks

2) I went out during my lunch and used compressed air to blast out the drain pockets that had some leaves in them. These are the two small drain screens right below the windshield - only can see them when you open the hood.

3) is it somehow possible for however brief it was I forced some amount of moisture into or around some wiring ?

4) I thought the two outer headlights were low-beam and two inner headlights were high beam, no ?

Guys please help

Thank you,
Merlin

[s14_kev]

Originally Posted by Merlin_83

Greetings,

Before I get flamed and yelled at...I did searches amongst the forums, and could not find anything useful to help me.

I turn to my ///M brethren...First issue ever had with the car in 5 years....got in car this afternoon to go home and got 'low beam malfunction' error message on the nav screen. What's weird is the high beam also does not work....so is it the control module aka the ballast ? This is just on the drivers side.

Details:

1) It rained all day today in Oregon..uhg..now it won't stop until next summer. Have no idea why people would want to move here...it sucks

2) I went out during my lunch and used compressed air to blast out the drain pockets that had some leaves in them. These are the two small drain screens right below the windshield - only can see them when you open the hood.

3) is it somehow possible for however brief it was I forced some amount of moisture into or around some wiring ?

4) I thought the two outer headlights were low-beam and two inner headlights were high beam, no ?

Guys please help

Thank you,
Merlin

I just went through something similar. The quickest and easiest thing to do is swap the bulbs from left to right. If the issue remains on the driver side, it is a ballast/wiring issue. If the passenger side doesn't work then the issue is with the bulb and you'll just need to replace that bulb. The easiest way to access the bulbs is to jack up the car and remove the wheel and fender liner. It should take about 20-30 minutes.

To answer #4, the headlights are bi-xenon so the same bulb (outer light) controls bother the low and high beam. The inner lights are called corner bulbs which turn on when turning the steering wheel, using the turn signal, or putting the car in reverse (unless they've been coded out). Hope that helps.

[Merlin_83]

Thank you very much !

I have a good floor jack and will raise the car to try and swap the bulbs. I do hope it's the bulbs and not th ballast.

If it is ballast, not worth doing myself I take it ? - is better to have dealership perform this ?

Thanks,
Merlin

[s14_kev]

Originally Posted by Merlin_83

Thank you very much !

I have a good floor jack and will raise the car to try and swap the bulbs. I do hope it's the bulbs and not th ballast.

If it is ballast, not worth doing myself I take it ? - is better to have dealership perform this ?

Thanks,
Merlin

Ballast will be more involved. I haven't done it myself but I think it requires front bumper removal. Good luck!!

[ItsGary]

The outer project ones are Hi-Low Beams, the inner ones are cornering lights/flash to pass.


You can access the ballast without removing the bumper and removing the actual headlight unit but its a bitch unless you have a few uni joints. Its not that hard to take off the bumper either. It just sucks assembling everything back together, but if your bumper alignment is off its a good time to get a friend to align everything up.

[Merlin_83]

Update:

Uhg...I tried the test of checking to see if I could detect the high pitched whine of the ballast converting 12 volts to 50,000 volts....I could hear it on the passenger side...not on the drivers side...so it's likely the ballast that has failed.....FUCK! -

Have appointment with the dealer next week.....I'll keep you posted.

Poking around I found some TIS bulletins about the fogging of headlights..and 3 years ago I had dealership document that the fogging of the headlights...especially on the drivers side (the side not working)

If anyone knows of specific TIS or service bulletins about the condensation it would be much appreciated.


Thank you,
Merlin

[Merlin_83]

UPDATE

So the car was taken to dealer, at first the SA was all excited that I was not to worry...was only the bi-xenon lo/hi beam module.....

But yeah...no......about 20 minutes later the SA came back and said it's the control module itself...he also acknowledged that back when car was still under warranty I brought car in for a fogged headlight (the one being worked on)..at that time I asked the the SA document in the history of the car that this had occurred and that possibly down the road might lead to premature failure..

With that in mind the SA acknowledged that they will work with me if the find any evidence of water ingress, sealing failure, etc.....

I will upload some documents I found that are in some way associated with this issue, direct from BMW..

Thanks,
Merlin

[Merlin_83]

Here are some of the documents I mentioned in prior post - take a look, there all pdf's