The wiring breaks for these Xenon headlights all the time. The standard Bi-Xenons have less of a problem, but the Adaptive Bi-Xenon headlights that steer have more problems because there is more movement.

Search the Lighting Forum here, there are PLENTY of cases where wires are broken inside the lamp housing, easy to check, but you may need to move the windshield washer reservoir out of the way, easy to do, just 1 bolt.

I bought 2 used Ballast's on ebay for like $40 shipped. These are used in a number of other cars so they can sometimes be found in junkyards, but beware headlights are often the first thing to go in a junkyard!

 

That's what I was thinking too, that connections might be more vulnerable with the "adaptive" xenon since they move. However, I also have this problem when I switch the lights into the "regular" non-adaptive mode as well, doesn't seem to affect anything...

I'm feeling more and more like this will end up being a grounding issue or a bad connection or somehow wiring-related. Seems a bit too random to be a component going bad. I'll probably get some new bulbs regardless since I'm wanting to switch back to OEM temp bulbs anyway.

A bit off-topic, but can the headlight lenses themselves be bought separate from the rest of the headlight assembly, and installed fairly easily? My passengers side lense is real cloudy (drivers side is clean) and I'd almost rather just get a new one if its reasonable.

 

Actually there was a thread sort of recently about this and the manual stated that the adaptive functions only work in auto mode.

I can confirm this on my 10/04 ZHP Coupe with Adaptive Bi xenon. When the switch is 2 clicks to the right the adaptive does not function either, only in Auto mode.

OP, I saw your comment on my thread, the only thing that I can contribute it to is that I mistakenly adjusted this adjustment 2 weeks ago, quite a few turns before I realized that I was adjusting horizontal instead of vertical and now I am having the issue.

 

The wiring is crap in these headlights, the copper is not annealed enough and it too hard and the insulation becomes brittle and cracks. The headlights are moving all the time and will fatigue the wiring, it is not IF but WHEN and my almost last moth of production of the E46 Convertible had this problem a year or so ago when posted the thread.

 

Triple Confirm jfoj's Comments

I would just like to triple confirm jfoj's comments.

I had exactly the same thing happen on my car, with xenon's, around this time of year (cold weather). At first the right (passenger) side light was blinking. Then after about a week, it just went out altogether. I tried swapping all of the removable items (bulb, igniter, ballast) from right side to the still working driver's side to isolate the problem. Finally, I took the whole housing with everything and swapped sides temporarily and carefully. That was when the outage followed the whole unit which meant the trouble was what I will call the wiring internal to the glued/sealed xenon lens housing. When I looked closely at the wires, with the right side housing out of the car, I found the fine gauge wires had broken ~2 inches into the housing from the igniter/bulb port.

My remedy was to strip off as much of the brittle plastic insulation as possible, slide on a generous amount of heat shrink tubing, delicately do a longitudinal solder joint (without melting the end of the heat shrink), then slide the heat shrink over the solder joint and shrink the heat shrink over the soldered wires. You have to be careful not to use to much solder. I did this process for all of the wires in the right housing. The best price I could find on a whole new assembly was over $700.

My theory is that the passenger side has a tendency to deteriorate first since that side of the engine compartment gets the hottest because of the catalytic converters. And the stock BMW catalytic converters that came with the car when the car was new, at least on my car, had NO heat shields.

BMW should have specified Teflon insulation to its vendor for the wiring in the xenon light housings. The xenon lights themselves generate high amounts of heat. Add the crummy insulation to the insufficient annealling of the copper and you have a recipe for absolute failure.

 

I would just like to triple confirm jfoj's comments.

I had exactly the same thing happen on my car, with xenon's, around this time of year (cold weather). At first the right (passenger) side light was blinking. Then after about a week, it just went out altogether. I tried swapping all of the removable items (bulb, igniter, ballast) from right side to the still working driver's side to isolate the problem. Finally, I took the whole housing with everything and swapped sides temporarily and carefully. That was when the outage followed the whole unit which meant the trouble was what I will call the wiring internal to the glued/sealed xenon lens housing. When I looked closely at the wires, with the right side housing out of the car, I found the fine gauge wires had broken ~2 inches into the housing from the igniter/bulb port.

My remedy was to strip off as much of the brittle plastic insulation as possible, slide on a generous amount of heat shrink tubing, delicately do a longitudinal solder joint (without melting the end of the heat shrink), then slide the heat shrink over the solder joint and shrink the heat shrink over the soldered wires. You have to be careful not to use to much solder. I did this process for all of the wires in the right housing. The best price I could find on a whole new assembly was over $700.

My theory is that the passenger side has a tendency to deteriorate first since that side of the engine compartment gets the hottest because of the catalytic converters. And the stock BMW catalytic converters that came with the car when the car was new, at least on my car, had NO heat shields.

BMW should have specified Teflon insulation to its vendor for the wiring in the xenon light housings. The xenon lights themselves generate high amounts of heat. Add the crummy insulation to the insufficient annealling of the copper and you have a recipe for absolute failure.

Honestly, I'm imagining a similar fix in my situation. Which I'd be pretty with since I can likely pull that off between my own tools and tools I have available at work. I definitely could see the cold weather playing a bit of a role in this as well - I've even noticed the last couple of days that it's been happening less since it's been a bit warmer.

I haven't done much reading up on taking apart the headlight units yet - how difficult is it to access the "internal" wiring once I have them removed and sitting on a workbench?

 

Didnt read too much of this thread but im willing to bet it is the wiring that has started to fall apart and short out.

I replaced all my wiring with silicone wire and new fx-r projectors.


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I have not seen the wiring short out, but I clearly have had the wiring break can cause problems. I also lost a ballast because I could not get to my E46 in time to correct the problem and TOO MANY on and off cycles can and will damage the ballast after a period of time.

The quicker you figure out what is going on and correct the problem, the better off you will be.

 

You can check the drivers side wiring without any tools, just pop off the oval bulb access door and look in at the wiring from the top of the opening because this is where the problem will be. Use a flashlight and inspect the insulation for cracks which should be easy to see. The wiring breaks at the insulation cracks.

Passenger side you will need to remove 1 bolt for the windshield washer reservoir to move it slightly, it does not need to be fully removed from the car. The reservoir needs to be moved so you can get the bulb access cover off.

I used blue tape and taped the top support plastic arms even with the core support so when I removed the light housing I could get the lamp assembly back in the car without being too far out of alignment.

The light housing is only held in with 4 bolts as I recall, one is a bit low on the lower inside part of the housing, I put a piece of blue tape in the socket to capture the screw and/or used a long flexible magnet to make sure I did not drop the screw into the black hole!

I unclipped the bezel below the headlight but did not disconnect the headlight washer. You can pull the bezel forward and work the headlight out of the opening, note there will be some washer fluid that leaks, this is normal and does not mean anything bad happened or broke. I suggest a piece of cardboard or plastic between the top of the bumper and below the headlight and bezel to protect the paint on the top of the bumper.

Work on the headlight on a bench. I would take pictures and make diagrams of the wiring. I opened the connector to the ignitor and slid the wires out of the connector so I could slip additional heat shrink over the wires that were not broken to strengthen and protect them to hopefully get some more time out of the rats nest of wiring.

 

'04 330ci bi-xenons turning on and off

You should be able to check the passenger side without removing any bolt. Ive done it plenty of times.

When i rewired mine i popped the wire out of every connector and cut and resoldered in new silicone wiring. With what was left of the wiring i heat shrinked it and slid back in connector

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After repairing the poor wiring in several of these cars, I'd like to clarify a few points for the value of this thread:
- the AHL (adaptive headlight) feature that turns the bulbs as you turn the steering wheel is only active when the headlight switch is in the [A] for automatic position; turned counter clockwise (to the left). It is not active with the headlight switch in any other position.
- you can easily disable AHL using BMW Scanner 1.4. I did this after repairing the wiring to make it last longer.
- if the ballast (63127176068) goes out, you can spend $300 for an OE unit or only $40 for the Chinese clone unit on Amazon. I've installed several cheap clones and they're all still working after a few years.

 

Even if you disable the Adaptive Headlight movement, there is still the Auto Leveling so there is still a fair amount of headlight movement going on. I guess you could unplug either the Adaptive steering connection and the Auto Leveling connection as well.

Best to try and repair the wiring the best way possible. I also unplugged the wire tie anchor in the headlight housing closest to the reflector bowl to reduce the bend radius of the wiring in hopes of lengthening the wire lifespan as well. After 10 years of the wire held in the headlight housing the upper most wire tire anchor is really not needed.

 

'04 330ci bi-xenons turning on and off

Just buy a second set of lights and replace all the wiring inside then resell the spare set. No more headaches for you or possible future owners.

Unplugging sensors and disabling features is just a temporary fix as the wire will still degrade from heat cycles.

If you need help PM me and i can walk you thru it quickly


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**Update**

Finally got a chance to open up the headlights over the weekend and found a definite wiring issue. I should have taken some pictures, my bad...
Anyway, there's a brown ground wire that is connected to a stud inside the housing. This wire had somehow gotten sliced with exposed wire on both ends of the break inside the passenger headlight. The wiring for the main plug for the HID bulb socket was also damaged, still solid intact but insulation was flaked away in areas near the plug. We reconnected the brown ground wire and taped/heat-shrinked all exposed wiring, put it all back together, and I have had zero problems since.

Our theory on what happened was that the dangling ground wire was making contact occasionally with the main wires where the insulation had worn away. This would cause a short circuit and cause the light to shut off momentarily before turning back on. Since electrical systems are notoriously a PITA I could see this somehow affecting the driver headlight somehow at the same time. I don't really know how this happened - the way the brown wire was broken it didn't seem like anything that could have been rubbing. Honestly surprised that all of this didn't fry any of the bulbs.

But it's fixed, and it's working, and that's all I care about right now. I plan to take a peak inside in the near future to see how the wiring is holding up. Glad I didn't dive right into replacing ballasts and bulbs and whatnot. Perks of having a roommate who's a former mechanic, a huge wealth of tools and know-how to draw on. Total wrenching time - less than 30-45 mins.

 

Add another wiring failure to the list :thumbup: