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BMW 3-Series (E90 E92) Forum > E90 / E92 / E93 3-series Technical Forums > DIY Guides > DIY- 08 LED plate lights on pre-08's



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      11-18-2007, 05:17 PM   #1
1clean335i
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DIY- 08 LED plate lights on pre-08's

Finally got around to installing the LED plate lights a few mins ago after a rather long weekend... Many of you that are reading this probably have been following the other thread in the general section... Well the retrofit is done and looks great!

There was an issue with getting the right part numbers for the plug connector and wires/pins which is still unknown, but I found these connectors/wires around the shop so I lucked out

The plate lights come out real easily by inserting a flat head screwdriver into the slot on the lights themselves and sliding the assembly to the right. I took off the trunk lid carpet to make the wiring part a lot easier.

Part number for the lights (same for both sides)-


With the connector/wires plugged in-


Another view-


Best shot I could get of the connector-


Original plate light-


The pins and shrink tube I used-


Close up of the pins-


Trunk trim off (only held on by a couple plastic push rivets-


You can see the opening for the plate light wires. Just pull it through-


With the connectors crimped on-


At this point you will want to turn the parking lights on and connect the wires from the plate lights to the harness to see which way the wires are supposed to go. I guess I should have looked to see which color wire went to what pin but I forgot.
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      11-18-2007, 05:17 PM   #2
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Wiring complete-


LED vs. OEM comparison-


LED-


OEM-


Another view-


OEM-


LED-
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      11-18-2007, 05:23 PM   #3
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Done-


















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      11-18-2007, 06:47 PM   #4
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EXCELLENT!!!

Thanks so much for doing this. So all we need is that one part number from BMW? The rest we can get anywhere basically.. ?
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      11-18-2007, 07:30 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Crazy Bimmer View Post
EXCELLENT!!!

Thanks so much for doing this. So all we need is that one part number from BMW? The rest we can get anywhere basically.. ?
Nobody has been able to confirm the part numbers for the connectors and pins needed to plug into the lights but if you can source those pieces somewhere other than a BMW dealer than more power too you. They appear to be the generic speaker connectors from the front door speakers but I havent confirmed that either. I found mine from an old body harness that was in the shop.
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      11-18-2007, 07:50 PM   #6
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Sweet~
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      11-19-2007, 08:29 AM   #7
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Sadly, when I got in the car this morning to go to work, I got the license plate light malfunction message. Im gonna look into this and see if theres something I can do via programming/encoding.
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      11-19-2007, 11:39 AM   #8
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Maybe slap on a resistor... ?
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      11-19-2007, 02:14 PM   #9
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thanks for the write up!

no error, right?
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      11-19-2007, 02:25 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Crazy Bimmer View Post
Maybe slap on a resistor... ?
What kind of resistors do you guys use and which wire do you splice them in? Im not too familiar with the whole wiring resistors inline with the harness stuff. Havent really had to do that kind of stuff till now..



shragon- sadly enough, these did throw an error code. im trying to see what I can do to fix that. It doesnt really bother me though as it only chimes when I start the car and when I shut it off..
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      11-19-2007, 02:49 PM   #11
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Hi,

I´m trying to install the new OEM LED plate lights in my E91 too.
I have the same error message when start the car.

The connection was easy but there must install a resistor. Does anybody knows which resistor I need?
The LED says 12V, 0,5W. The old series bulb says 12V, 5W.

Thanks for your help.


Greetings from Germany.....
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      11-19-2007, 03:17 PM   #12
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should be in the neighborhood of 35Ω, 5W.

I'd rather see a cleaner fix, though -- wasting power with parallel resistors to fake out the computer seems like an awful hack.

I'm quite sure the '08s don't have resistors in them, and the E46 LED tail lights were error-free without resistors after a quick visit to the dealership. I bet there's a simple way to just disable bulb-out monitoring for various lamps via GT1.
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      11-19-2007, 03:17 PM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 1clean335i View Post
What kind of resistors do you guys use and which wire do you splice them in? Im not too familiar with the whole wiring resistors inline with the harness stuff. Havent really had to do that kind of stuff till now..



shragon- sadly enough, these did throw an error code. im trying to see what I can do to fix that. It doesnt really bother me though as it only chimes when I start the car and when I shut it off..
sh!t, that sucks!!
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      11-19-2007, 04:53 PM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 1clean335i View Post
What kind of resistors do you guys use and which wire do you splice them in? Im not too familiar with the whole wiring resistors inline with the harness stuff. Havent really had to do that kind of stuff till now..
Speaking of resistors, I have experience in using them since I took avionics class when I was at college getting a license to work on planes.

I had the V1 hardwiring install and the plate LED's install planned for today but my gf's car is at the shop getting snow tires installed and she needed a ride to college...on top of that my uncle called and wanted to put the headlights back in his '02 firebird because I replaced the stripped plastic gears with brass at the shop.


Everytime I want to do something to my car...something always gets in the way and I hardly have time to do it afterwards...


Tomorrow afternoon looks like I'm gonna get to it...


As for the resistors, you need to measure the resistance between the two terminals in the stock headlight housing (disconnected from the car) with a multimeter set to measure a resistance value.

Then you get a resistor that matches the value and wire it inline on the positve side (because that reads back to the OBC with resistance value of the bulb)
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      11-19-2007, 07:19 PM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 777ER View Post
As for the resistors, you need to measure the resistance between the two terminals in the stock headlight housing (disconnected from the car) with a multimeter set to measure a resistance value.
Looking forward to your results with the multimeter 777ER!

As for aftermarket LED's, the guys on the E60 board were having success with 50ohm 10w resistor from Radio Shack. Not sure if that helps since there's the possibility that the OEM LED's have a different resistance.
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      11-19-2007, 08:03 PM   #16
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Thanks for the info 777ER... Ill look into this within the next few days
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      11-22-2007, 11:24 AM   #17
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I used this DIY for installation:
http://www.e90post.com/forums/showth...t=38919&page=2

The new OEM LED plate lights work great and I got no error message in the display. It´s perfect now.


Greetings.....


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      11-27-2007, 02:36 PM   #18
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As the poster above pointed out in the link, you can just short your LP lights to share the load of the bulb to one of the rear lights. You don't really need to short both both the the left / right rear lights to the trunk light.... Just remember that it's the positive leads you want to short together... (don't short the positive to ground...)

Doing it this way is actually much better since it tricks the computer to seeing the load of a bulb without creating unecessary heat. A paralleled resistor would just dissipate the energy in the form of heat...

Downside to this method would that if the tail light bulb that you connected to goes out, you'll get two warnings, one for the tail light, and one for the License Plate light.
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      11-27-2007, 10:40 PM   #19
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Fischer_Motorsport View Post
I used this DIY for installation:
http://www.e90post.com/forums/showth...t=38919&page=2

The new OEM LED plate lights work great and I got no error message in the display. It´s perfect now.


Greetings.....


Uli

Thanks for the link man! I finally got around to doing it earlier and works great. Only took another few mins and no more error...
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      01-23-2008, 11:22 PM   #20
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sweet!!! want to do mine? lol
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      02-04-2008, 11:56 AM   #21
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sweet!!! want to do mine? lol
Sure! if you dont mind taking a trip to Tampa
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