Quote:
Originally Posted by Bimmer-Bob
Thanks for the detailed info! It will be very helpful.
I've already reviewed the thread you suggested. The source of my confusion was that one of the posts references creating a jump wire with part number 61130005199, and also references following a linked PDF. However, the PDF says to use a pair of wires with part number 61138364566. So do I need both of these parts? And how many - one per side?
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The parts you see in my post above are 61130005199. I can confirm that these are NOT the correct parts to use, but they will work. Each part number is for one wire, so I ordered two. The pins for P/N 61130005199 accept a square shaped 'prong', and the LCI headlights are rectangular 'prongs'. I modified mine to work by bending two of the edges inward to create a rectangular opening and then used force to get it to bend a little more. They did not want to seat properly at first and I may replace them in the long run with different pins. With that said, I've had zero issues since installing them about 1.5 months ago
I looked at this post:
http://www.e90post.com/forums/showpo...03&postcount=1 but I never did get around to pricing it out. There is way more than you need, since this is what I assume is a full retrofit harness for halogen to xenon... But you can see what I assume is the correct pins with the black with green stripe and purple with grey stripe wires. Regardless if they are right about $150, I would rather buy $10 worth of over charged wire and modify it to work...
EDIT: Just looked into it, looks to be around $30. Might be worth having a look at what it comes with but the 61130005199 wires will work with a little adjustment
EDIT: As for the other part (61138364566) Pic below.
These are not what you want to use at all for what I described above. These CAN be used to modify the headlights themselves, but I have a real distaste for these cheap bridging connectors. They are much more likely to fail than a soldered connection. Using these would really only save you the soldering step and add A LOT of bulk to the wiring harness. When these get referenced it's often to modify the headlight itself rather than the car's wiring. Again though, it's going to be better to solder it than use these. All other factors aside, a soldered connection will almost never fail. One of these little bridging connectors can be crushed, crack, come apart, etc. Think of soldering as welding, and these little connectors as duct tape. Would you rather duct tape or weld two pieces of steel together?
For me, what it comes down to is this: I know with certainty that a soldered connection will realistically never fail, and I can stand behind my work. If I use one of these cheap connectors, it may work, it may not. With the complexity of electrical systems in cars these days it's often very difficult to know exactly what impact shorting wires can have. Often it's simply just a fuse but it can damage computers. If I know that using one type of connection can lead to a failure then why use it? Soldering is really quite easy to do and for $15 worth of tools and parts, and 3 minutes more work it's just not worth the risk of having something fail down the road. Especially when a new computer + diagnostics + coding can easily run into the 4 figure mark
Why did I do it the way I posted above? Well IF I decide to sell the car, the Pre-LCI headlights have no pin 7, so I don't need to do any mods to the wiring to put it back to 2008 spec. If I modify the headlights, I need to then modify them again to return them to OE spec so that if I sold them to someone with a 2011+ they don't get some kind of bulb error or blown fuse because pin 1 + pin 7 are connected inside the headlight. In addition it's WAY easier to work with the headlight harness than poke around inside the headlight to connect the wires there. It's also WAY easier to troubleshoot the wiring harness than the wires inside the headlight, since you need to pull the headlight before you can investigate.
