E90 Angel Eyes
E90 Angel Eyes
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Mr Tidy

Original Poster:

31,726 posts

157 months

Monday 1st April 2019
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I picked up an E90 330i last Thursday complete with a non-working passenger side angel eye (It's got Bi-Xenons).

The seller gave me a kit for swapping to LEDs and said it was an easy job (liar)!

The dead bulb was on the nearside, so it's pretty much hidden behind the airbox (which he had obviously disturbed before he lost the will to live!) banghead

Anyway I got the air-box out and managed to remove some covers to get to the Angel eye, then got that out once I discovered it was Torx screws holding it in. rolleyes

The bulb is a bayonet fitting and with skinny fingers I managed to undo it, but the way it's built the bayonet won't come out of the
light fitting. So on Saturday I ordered one from ECP - over £40, but £28.78 with a discount. eek

That seemed like a crazy price for a bulb, so this morning I got some proper pliers on the bulb, which promptly broke! Then I got a small screw-driver down the side of the bulb cap and compressed it as much as I could then used a pair of long-nose pliers to drag the cap out (along with a chunk of my forefinger). Ouch!

Got a needle file busy on the parts of the fitting where the bayonet pins need to go, and stuck a cheap as chips bayonet bulb from a spare bulb kit in - success!

But what a PITA just for a side-light - not in any way environmentally friendly. banghead



survivalist

6,124 posts

220 months

Tuesday 2nd April 2019
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Just be thankful it wasn’t the drivers side, there’s even less space to work. Seems the easiest approach is to remove the wheel and arch liner and get to it that way.

Mine needed doing a few months ago but not being as persistent as you I got my local garage to do it along with the MOT.

Was all good until the HID bulb went a couple of days ago - back to square one.

naturalaspiration

639 posts

113 months

Tuesday 2nd April 2019
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Your spare bulb kit had a W10W bulb? Or was it a W5W bulb maybe? Both sides equally bright?

Court_S

14,788 posts

207 months

Tuesday 2nd April 2019
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They make it good fun don’t they?

My E90 didn’t have xnenons so I upgraded to brighter bulbs, but even with the access hatches in the wheel arch, changing the bulbs was a paint scrapped knuckles and swearing! rofl

Mr Tidy

Original Poster:

31,726 posts

157 months

Tuesday 2nd April 2019
quotequote all
naturalaspiration said:
Your spare bulb kit had a W10W bulb? Or was it a W5W bulb maybe? Both sides equally bright?
Actually I was amazed to find it was a 12w bulb! But I couldn't detect any difference in brightness at dusk. .