[jkmrtno]

Hello to anyone unfortunate enough to click on this thread,

I have been battling my passenger xenon for quite a while now.

It originally broke around 4-5 months ago under heavy load, I was smashing back roads at night and shifted 2nd to 3rd around 6k, after doing so I realized I could barely see and pulled over to find out my passenger side low beam wasn’t on(driver side was still on)

swapped bulbs and igniters over and no change, soon realized that the brittle, almost 20 year old wiring on the passenger side had actually snapped.

I soldered the ends together, heat shrinked, put electrical tape over the heat shrink, and zip tied the wires together so they would not separate and split again.

The headlights worked for about 2-3 weeks until I was doing some heavy driving with a few buddies and did a hard shift from 2nd to 3rd again and the same thing happened, passenger side headlight went out. I checked the same wiring i soldered and it seems all connections are still good.

Looking for any other diagnostic/fix for anyone that may be having the same issue.

I plan to take the entire headlight out this coming weekend to see if there are any other old brittle wires they need soldering.

Would it be worth it to buy a new wiring harness and redo the whole thing?

Any help/opinion is appreciated.

 

[tommy d]

You access what you need to do when you remove the headlight assembly. I would think you can do some more repairs much cheaper than a new harness. Post some photos when you get it out.

 

[Archbid]

A single replacement headlight isn't that expensive - about $200 used with no broken tabs.

 

[FrankieA]

Check the wires that lead to the igniter for damage or exposed copper threads, although it sounds like you've already looked over your wires thoroughly. In my case on my facelift 330ci, I found that some of those wires were cut at the location where they were tie wrapped. Another possible cause is a bad ballast.