Halogen to bi xenon upgrade

[ice4x4]

Hi there.

I have a 2005 Bmw e53 3.0i facelift. It has halogen headlights. I just bought 2 oem xenon headlights from ebay. I installed them and everything works exept the low beam xenon. When I look at the plug from my car and my friends car (that has oem xenon from factory) there are 2 extra wires in his car.

I know about the automatic height control for the xenon and I can live with that not working. Does anyone know a simple way to fix the wiring so the low beam xenon will work ?

Best regards

Gisli

[Zchan28]

Hi Gisli,

You ever get this resolved?

[X5Sport]

ice4x4 hasn’t been seen on the site since asking this question. Last visit was the same day.

At a guess, the two extra wires could be the drive for the mechanical shutter than Xenon lamps require to ‘mask off’ the high beam part. Xenon lights also need special ballasts to make the arc and run the actual bulbs.

The low/high beam come from the same bulb, just with the shutter masking. The separate inboard lamps are high beam spots.

What problem are you having?

[Zchan28]

My xenons beams don't power on at all when I swap the headlights over.

[Leslie]

I had 2 bi xenon headlights bought for an e46 and one wouldn't work and it was a faulty igniter, I took the ballast off usually a silver box on the underneath and put it on the good light to prove the ballast was good. The igniter is usually inside the light so lens needs removing to get to it.
If neither is working then it's difficult to trouble shoot.They should really work straight away as they wil be same parts as an e46 I'd think, same age without any programming just giving bulb out warnings, The shutter Fot high beam won't work as you don't have the wiring but tapping into the halogen high beam wire would sort that.

[Zchan28]

Thanks for the info, think I will need to get the headlights tested, neither one powered on when fitted