2008 M3 Headlight Issues

[youremostwelcome]

Hi everybody, I've done a bit of searching around on this, but nobody seems to have posted about my specific issue.
The angel eyes/halos on the left headlight of my xenon-lit M3 have stopped working. They would flicker, and sometimes come on full, and then over the next few drives, flicker and stay off, and now they're just off. The actual headlights still work, it's just the running lights/halos that are affected. The car has registered the fault. I was going to order a new ballast for it, but noticed that people having issues with the ballast seemed to have had the headlight itself affected too, and wanted to ask whether this is still likely to be the cause of my issue.
Any info on this would be very much appreciated.
Cheers,
Angus

[sdbmwcoding]

Why not swap the angel eye bulbs from working side to non working side and see if it follows first? Not sure why people needed to get new headlights because of angel eyes going out. I think you may be thinking of the xenon control module/headlight module but that controls the lowbeam light not the angel eyes. Back in the day the xenon control module wasn't easily attainable to people would need to replace the entire headlight, but that's not the case anymore and doesn't apply here since that module controls the lowbeam.

[youremostwelcome]

Will definitely give this a go. Am I right in thinking that this job doesn't require the entire headlight assembly and bumper to come off, but can be accessed from the top, under the hood? I would have looked at all this properly normally, but have a fractured spine and broken wrist at the moment, so I'll a bit slower than normal!

[LuckiSevens]

Originally Posted by youremostwelcome

Hi everybody, I've done a bit of searching around on this, but nobody seems to have posted about my specific issue.
The angel eyes/halos on the left headlight of my xenon-lit M3 have stopped working. They would flicker, and sometimes come on full, and then over the next few drives, flicker and stay off, and now they're just off. The actual headlights still work, it's just the running lights/halos that are affected. The car has registered the fault. I was going to order a new ballast for it, but noticed that people having issues with the ballast seemed to have had the headlight itself affected too, and wanted to ask whether this is still likely to be the cause of my issue.
Any info on this would be very much appreciated.
Cheers,
Angus

You just need to change the H8 bulb Angus. There's a cap on the top of each light assembly that you open, they have two clips that pry open with a screwdriver, minimal force required. The bulb turns clockwise for removal. I bought sylvaina whites which were $15 each from Amazon.

All the best for your recovery.

Here's a vid

[sdbmwcoding]

Originally Posted by youremostwelcome

Will definitely give this a go. Am I right in thinking that this job doesn't require the entire headlight assembly and bumper to come off, but can be accessed from the top, under the hood? I would have looked at all this properly normally, but have a fractured spine and broken wrist at the moment, so I'll a bit slower than normal!

Correct you can access it from the top of the headlight, may be a bit of a pain to remove them but just take your time and I found using a flat head screwdriver helped

[youremostwelcome]

Thank you both very much for your responses. Very much appreciated!
Angus

[youremostwelcome]

Hi all, so I've had more of a look into this. I've fitted a new H8 bulb, and no joy. Following this, I tested the new bulb on the RHS headlight and it's good. I also tested the original bulb in the same manner, and it works also. So it seems that the problem is upstream of the bulb area. Are there any other common failure points? I might just get this looked at by somebody more confident/knowledgeable about this, but if anything obvious is jumping out at you, I'm all ears!
Cheers,
Angus

[sdbmwcoding]

Originally Posted by youremostwelcome

Hi all, so I've had more of a look into this. I've fitted a new H8 bulb, and no joy. Following this, I tested the new bulb on the RHS headlight and it's good. I also tested the original bulb in the same manner, and it works also. So it seems that the problem is upstream of the bulb area. Are there any other common failure points? I might just get this looked at by somebody more confident/knowledgeable about this, but if anything obvious is jumping out at you, I'm all ears!
Cheers,
Angus

How long has it been since the bulb went out? Your frm might have thrown a short circuit fault for the angel eyes. It's pretty common when a bulb is out for an extended period of time without being replaced. If you have access to a code reader that'll check modules other than the dme, scan it and report back frm faults

[mapster37]

i would also check the wiring inside the headlight for frayed insulation, pretty common issue. the postive/negative wires could be contacting each other causing the bulb not to operate....