[Jabber88]

So last night I changed my stock bulbs. They both went in fine, but when I turned on the lights the passenger low beam didn't fire up. It was late last night and I was upset so I just left it. I haven't had time to look at the fuses, ofcourse im working a 12 hour shift today and I can't get it off my mind. I'm worried its the ballast, becuase the angel eyes still work. But does anyone know if it was a blown fuse would my angel eyes still work?

[denali335]

I'm definitely curious as to what happened... I have the same exact issue. I never thought to check a fuse but my best guess is the ballast. The BMW dealership here said that there was a crack on one of the tabs of the compartment cover and that moisture got into my headlight and then quoted me $3k for a new one. I almost punched him in the face.

[Jabber88]

3k holly Jesus That's crazy! But yea I checked my fuses and everything looked good. So I just bought an oem ballast and going to hope for for the best. But if that's not it I guess I'm going to have to take it to the dealer

[rollinstone157]

Originally Posted by Jabber88

3k holly Jesus That's crazy! But yea I checked my fuses and everything looked good. So I just bought an oem ballast and going to hope for for the best. But if that's not it I guess I'm going to have to take it to the dealer

There are a few components that could be broken. One is the ballast for sure.

Have someone else turn the car on, stand at the front of the car, switch the headlights on, and have someone start the car. You should see a "self-check" of the xenon auto-leveling system (beams move up and down, takes a few seconds). Does the dead side still move? If not, it could be indicitive of the ballast and other components--perhaps the auto-stepper controller (disclaimer: i may have butchered the name of that part, but it's the piece that actually moves the projector up/down/left/right)

[98RACE]

Did you ever get it fixed? Just happened to me this morning and got a CC-ID 121 code, did not have much time to play around as it started to rain so I popped in the old bulb and it still did not work.
Any help would be greatly apreciated.

Dave

[denali335]

It took me three dealerships but they finally covered the ballast and the bulb under CPO. My issue was that they were refusing to do the diagnostic to check if it was the ballast or not unless I agreed to pay $600 in labor in the case that it wasn't covered. Funny thing is that the first two dealerships were dead set against it and trying to find ways to blame it on other things and the final one was really cool about it and actually even covered the replacement HID bulb which everyone else said was definitely not covered... Although now my halo eyes on the passenger side are out so I'm hoping that's just the bulb and not anything to do with the ballast again.

[Delta0311]

Originally Posted by denali335

It took me three dealerships but they finally covered the ballast and the bulb under CPO. My issue was that they were refusing to do the diagnostic to check if it was the ballast or not unless I agreed to pay $600 in labor in the case that it wasn't covered. Funny thing is that the first two dealerships were dead set against it and trying to find ways to blame it on other things and the final one was really cool about it and actually even covered the replacement HID bulb which everyone else said was definitely not covered... Although now my halo eyes on the passenger side are out so I'm hoping that's just the bulb and not anything to do with the ballast again.

The ballast does not control the halo bulbs. Halo bulbs are seperate

[TommyLights]

Sounds like the cable that connects the ballast to the HID bulb is not connected either on the ballast or bulb side. Make sure you check the connection on both sides. Halo bulb is an H7, condensation wouldnt really affect that.

[minifridge1138]

Holy dead thread revival!!!

I had the same problem: low beam malfunction on the passenger's side.

I swapped bulbs and the passenger's side still didn't work. So my problem wasn't a dead bulb.

I swapped the wiring harness that goes from the control unit to the xenon, but the passenger side still didn't work. So that wasn't my problem.

I swapped xenon control units (#8 on this schematic: http://realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do?...63&fg=05&hl=14) and then the driver's side was dead. So that was my problem. Dealer wanted $167 to figure that out.

I bought one from the dealer (that stung) and installed it this morning.

Fortunately, I was able to remove the control unit without having to remove the headlight. It was tricky, but possible.

Some people have said they were lucky and their problem was just the small 2 prong wiring harness that plugs into the control unit. I was not so lucky.

Just some info for anyone else that has a problem and stumbles on this thread.

[zackkcaz25]

8 years later!! Is it necessary to replace the ballast with OEM? There's eBay ballasts for a fraction of the price of OEM just wondering if it really matters or not.

[Captain Buumer]

Ballast purpose is to convert 12v to 23kv.

Don't have to be OEM but cheap ebay ones are slower to reach stable voltage and mostly perform worse than OEM. They lack filtration circuit and generally use lower quality (bigger tolerance components).

Some (if not all really cheap ones) will create EMI and mess up your radio reception & or even tyre pressure sensors.

I've bought really cheap ebay ones that come prefilled with sand (make them heavier and some fireproof) - were bad, only for testing.
Some 3rd party semi-decent ones - died because of water damage (not potted, used them outside/non-bmw vechicle with extremely awful headlight design.
Hylux brand ballasts from ebay which seem your best bet as they are quite good.

You could even buy 55w ballast to get even brighter xenons at the cost of life expectancy of bulb/projector reflective area. They normally run 35w.

OEM is preferred because it's a guaranteed quality when it comes to electronics/sensors in general - reason why they last many many years.

However OEM ballasts are not potted(not filled with silicone similar material to make them moisture proof) which means they are vulnerable to water damage (a thing you can diy and prolong ballast life).

So you can buy OEM and they will eventually break again because your headlights leak water inside - repeat forever. Or fix headlights, ventilation plug missing or crack somewhere or rear cover not properly sealed or rear cover seal just worn.
Buy potted hylux ballast and probably never worry about them breaking.

When buying other brand ballast make sure the connections/fitment is "diy" able as it is quite tight there.

I've replaced D1S projector in bmw bi-xenon headlights and fitted F5C H7 LED to high beams. The combined light output is now close to some better LEDbar setups.Output is focused to the forward while spreading evenly to the sides - achieved with no external modifications & integrated to OEM locations. Really enjoyable to drive at night in country roads. Output is definitely better than modern cars LED headlights which is impossible to beat with regular xenon + halogen H7 combination.

BMW oem bi-xenones have foggy lenses and lightning spread/cutoff is not ideal. So it's an upgrade you can consider of when taking headlights apart.

[risbo8]

Originally Posted by Captain Buumer

Ballast purpose is to convert 12v to 23kv.

Don't have to be OEM but cheap ebay ones are slower to reach stable voltage and mostly perform worse than OEM. They lack filtration circuit and generally use lower quality (bigger tolerance components).

Some (if not all really cheap ones) will create EMI and mess up your radio reception & or even tyre pressure sensors.

I've bought really cheap ebay ones that come prefilled with sand (make them heavier and some fireproof) - were bad, only for testing.
Some 3rd party semi-decent ones - died because of water damage (not potted, used them outside/non-bmw vechicle with extremely awful headlight design.
Hylux brand ballasts from ebay which seem your best bet as they are quite good.

You could even buy 55w ballast to get even brighter xenons at the cost of life expectancy of bulb/projector reflective area. They normally run 35w.

OEM is preferred because it's a guaranteed quality when it comes to electronics/sensors in general - reason why they last many many years.

However OEM ballasts are not potted(not filled with silicone similar material to make them moisture proof) which means they are vulnerable to water damage (a thing you can diy and prolong ballast life).

So you can buy OEM and they will eventually break again because your headlights leak water inside - repeat forever. Or fix headlights, ventilation plug missing or crack somewhere or rear cover not properly sealed or rear cover seal just worn.
Buy potted hylux ballast and probably never worry about them breaking.

When buying other brand ballast make sure the connections/fitment is "diy" able as it is quite tight there.

I've replaced D1S projector in bmw bi-xenon headlights and fitted F5C H7 LED to high beams. The combined light output is now close to some better LEDbar setups.Output is focused to the forward while spreading evenly to the sides - achieved with no external modifications & integrated to OEM locations. Really enjoyable to drive at night in country roads. Output is definitely better than modern cars LED headlights which is impossible to beat with regular xenon + halogen H7 combination.

BMW oem bi-xenones have foggy lenses and lightning spread/cutoff is not ideal. So it's an upgrade you can consider of when taking headlights apart.

Your reply helped me understand things better, thank You for that!
My problem is that my passenger side ballast died 2 months ago, since then I bought and changed two new ones, but they died within 2-3 weeks, I don’t see any condensation, or wires with bad insulation, overall the headlight is not damaged, as far as I can see.
When I turn on the lights, passenger side flashes a couple of times, stops, and then flashes again, looks like it’s trying to turn on but that doesn’t happen. It cycles like that a couple of times and that’s it. Any insight on what could cause this issue? Really tired of throwing money away on new ballasts..

[Serf27]

Did you buy cheap ballasts or quality ballasts?

[risbo8]

I would say cheap.. The guy that sold them to me said he was getting them from Poland, but I think they are Chinese. Price per ballast was around 45 eur.

[Serf27]

Hmm, I’ve used cheap $30 USD ones from Amazon, and they’ve been working fine for a year.
Try swapping the driver side ballast to the passenger to see if the problem persists on the passenger side.

[risbo8]

Originally Posted by Serf27

Hmm, I’ve used cheap $30 USD ones from Amazon, and they’ve been working fine for a year.
Try swapping the driver side ballast to the passenger to see if the problem persists on the passenger side.

Well, then I’m pretty sure that there is something that makes them go bad on that side.. I’m taking the car to the electrician on Monday, hopefully he will figure it out 😊

[exoray]

Originally Posted by risbo8

Well, then I’m pretty sure that there is something that makes them go bad on that side.. I’m taking the car to the electrician on Monday, hopefully he will figure it out 😊

Have you figured out the source of the issue? Mine appears to short the ballasts within a couple start ups