[spikey92]

Hi - I have a 2007 328i coupe with Xenon and Adaptive Lights. A week ago I noticed heavier than usual condensation in the headlight after a solid Florida rain shower. Shortly after starting the car my passenger side low beam went out and the warning light (low beam with "!" on it?).

I thought it was just the bulb and got myself 2 new D1Ss. I got my car up on the jack, took out the wheel, 30 screws later, I replaced the bulb. NO GO.

Searched some more, looked like the ballast could be fried. Took mine out, water poured out. I thought I had the culprit, I ordered a new ballast from ebay and installed. NO GO.

Searched some more, found that I need to go deeper with my debug so I took the bumper off and both headlights out. I started switching components from one to the other. Looked like the old passenger side ballast was indeed busted and the ebay ballast was fine. Also the original bulb was fine too - even if cloudy a bit. After I switched EVERYTHING, including the Adaptive Headlight Module, STILL NO GO, the low beam on the passenger side still doesn't work.

Did more searching, thought it could be the Xenon connection cable (ballast to bulb). Ordered one on ebay, it came today, I installed it, STILL NO #%$@ GO!

In a last attempt, I switched the entire headlights from driver to passenger side, still no low beam on the passenger side....

Now at this point, I'm stuck . I did more searching:

1. Could be ground wire in the headlight connector - I have no idea how to diagnose this but I do have a multi-meter... looks like this guy solved his by fixing the ground issue (http://www.e90post.com/forums/showth...ht=HID+ballast)
2. Footwell Module - I don't have an OBD2 cable / software to even attempt to debug further, I'm reading http://codinge90.com/getting-started/ as I type, I hope that's the right resource.

Am I on the right track? Can there be anything else?

I think I can do #2 (if that's a good direction), but I will definitely need some help with #1. Can anyone please help me with #1?
Also, if there's anyone in the Cooper City FL area, with the right tools and knowledge, I will absolutely buy you all the beer you can drink !

Thanks a lot for reading!

[EDIT: See my reply below]

[AaronZ34]

I think you should keep on replacing parts. Don't actually diagnose anything, just keep buying more parts. Next try replacing the entire headlight assembly.

[n54SQUAD]

Adaptive headlight module . Not the ballast, i remember there being another part besides the ballast that powers the headlights.

[spikey92]

Originally Posted by n54SQUAD

Adaptive headlight module . Not the ballast, i remember there being another part besides the ballast that powers the headlights.

Thanks - yep, switched that too from headlight to headlight. The driver side lights up with both of them, passenger side still does not. Everything points to something before the headlight... either not getting the command to light up (footwell module) or bad wire from the module to the headlight.

I think I will replace the bulbs anyway, it will be a PITA to do it again when they actually go out. They were cloudy, that made me think it might be the bulb in the first place.

[spikey92]

Bump?

Anyone knows what the headlight pins should measure?

Thanks

[spikey92]

I finally solved my issues.

Additional issues that I faced were linked to the ODBII ebay cable(s) that I used, not with the cables themselves but with the driver. Apparently FTDI, the maker of the serial interface chip in these cables has published a driver that gets downloaded via Windows Update. I believe I had version 2.12.x.x. That version detects that the chip in my ebay cable as counterfeit and resets the PID of the chip. But it's also nice enough to leave a message in the Event Log. You can read more if you google "ftdigate".

Anyway, once I got a second cable and older drivers, I was able to connect
via INPA.

I used mainly this to install the tools:

http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1222277

Weird behavior, if you go to the FRM module and use the "Activate" module function in INPA, I was able to turn the headlight on. But of course it doesn't stay on after the car start, goes back to not lighting up.

I looked high and low for the procedure to reset the FRM short-circuit counters. Apparently the FRM detects a short circuit - due to my fried ballast
and keeps a counter. I read that once it gets to 50, the FRM needs to be changed. Anyway, I found the right procedure, I used Tool32 to read the counters and they were @ 18 for the right low beam. I looked at the trial and error instructions from here:

http://blog.obd2express.co.uk/2015/0...diabas-tool32/

... but I found something a bit more deterministic. It was on a Russian forum, I used Google Translate to translate the page and found a PDF with much better step by step instructions to reset the counters:

PDF attached my way of giving back to the community.

I found that there was some contradiction between the 2 methods, one says I should check the Data option next to the function arguments, the other says to try both ways. I tried both checked and unchecked following the PDF, it didn't work the first time but I kept trying to reset the short circuit counters and kept checking their values - at some point it worked.

I used both ‘steurn_reset_kurzsclussab…’ and ‘_reset_kurzschluss_sperre’ to reset, the second one worked with the Data unchecked but didn't immediately reset the counters... I guess there must be some delay because about a few tries later they were at 0. If someone has an actual explanation for this, let's post it.

I then reset the errors with INPA and now I have 2 functional headlights.

AaronZ34: you're a loser.

[LATE EDIT] This post may have the answer to my reset issues:
http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=625111
and this:
http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=866044

[exoray]

Dead thread but did it ever turn on before it failed again or did it stay dead until the counter reset? I’m going through the same process and the lights come on after the first two cycles before staying off again.