Note: The guide in this post is for pre-facelift cars with retrofitted LED taillights. heinzboehmer was awesome enough to put the extra information for facelift cars in this thread as well, reference Posts #6 and #9 in this thread for that.
Backstory: During a conversation with a fellow forum member today, this modification came up and in the process of gathering information for him, I thought it best to place it on the forum for easy access.
It is fairly common knowledge that LED taillights can be retrofitted on pre facelift cars through the use of OEM adapter cables, P/N 61120153650. However, the outermost ring of the LED brake lights is rendered inactive, as this was dedicated to “Brake Force Display” on facelift cars, i.e. the outer ring only lights up bright under heavier-than-normal braking. Here’s a comparison between lights with the outer ring active/inactive. It really is a nice aesthetic upgrade and is a very low cost modification.
From my understanding, this modification was originally published by Tiger Dave on his website in the early 2000’s. A thread on M3Forum had a link to Tiger Dave’s guide at one point, but by the time I found it, the link was broken, and obviously now so is M3Forum haha. I went digging in the Wayback Machine and found the original guide on a 2007 capture of Tigerdave.com.
The original guide recommends purchasing a second pair of adapter cables and hacking them up to acquire the proper terminals to fit the connectors for this mod. I managed to find an BMW OEM Part number for a piece of wire with the correct terminal pre-crimped. I paid $6.08 CAD at BMW Victoria, ECS Tuning lists them for $3.08 USD.
Disclaimer: None of the photos in this guide are mine, they have been sourced from Tigerdave.com via archive.org and other websites. Much of this guide is taken directly from Tiger Dave, and I have only added/removed bits of info where I felt necessary. This guide was done purely for the knowledge base of this community.
This how-to guide will show you how to rewire the BMW wire adapters so that the outer LEDs will also light up intensely any time the brakes are applied.
Parts/Tools you will need:
Begin with your two adapter cables. They are labelled left/right.
Remove the cover on the end of the adapter that plugs into the taillights. Tiger Dave says this is optional, but I found it necessary to insert the new wire, YMMV.
The Connectors are labelled slots 1 through 8, and slot number 4 is empty. This is the slot we will need to trigger the outer LEDs.
On the opposite end of the adapter cable, remove about 2 inches of electrical tape to access the individual wires. (I removed all of the original electrical tape and retaped the whole cable when I was finished)
Use your quick connect to tap the Black Wire with the Green Stripe, and supply power to your new wire (Yellow/Red in the photo, OEM comes black)
Insert the other end of your new wire into slot #4 of the taillight connector.
Replace the cover on the taillight connector, and wrap your cable up with electrical tape if you’d like. As I mentioned previously, I removed all of the OE electrical tape as well as the left/right labels, performed the mod, rewrapped the entire cable with new tape, and reapplied the labels. I found this to be the most organized way of doing things.
Enjoy your taillights! No additional coding has to be done to the LCM for this mod, but don’t forget to code for the LED retrofit if you haven’t done so already.
I think this mod adds to the rear end aesthetic of the car immensely, especially for something that’s super easy, quick and low cost. Hope this helps someone! Thanks for reading!
Backstory: During a conversation with a fellow forum member today, this modification came up and in the process of gathering information for him, I thought it best to place it on the forum for easy access.
It is fairly common knowledge that LED taillights can be retrofitted on pre facelift cars through the use of OEM adapter cables, P/N 61120153650. However, the outermost ring of the LED brake lights is rendered inactive, as this was dedicated to “Brake Force Display” on facelift cars, i.e. the outer ring only lights up bright under heavier-than-normal braking. Here’s a comparison between lights with the outer ring active/inactive. It really is a nice aesthetic upgrade and is a very low cost modification.
From my understanding, this modification was originally published by Tiger Dave on his website in the early 2000’s. A thread on M3Forum had a link to Tiger Dave’s guide at one point, but by the time I found it, the link was broken, and obviously now so is M3Forum haha. I went digging in the Wayback Machine and found the original guide on a 2007 capture of Tigerdave.com.
The original guide recommends purchasing a second pair of adapter cables and hacking them up to acquire the proper terminals to fit the connectors for this mod. I managed to find an BMW OEM Part number for a piece of wire with the correct terminal pre-crimped. I paid $6.08 CAD at BMW Victoria, ECS Tuning lists them for $3.08 USD.
Disclaimer: None of the photos in this guide are mine, they have been sourced from Tigerdave.com via archive.org and other websites. Much of this guide is taken directly from Tiger Dave, and I have only added/removed bits of info where I felt necessary. This guide was done purely for the knowledge base of this community.
This how-to guide will show you how to rewire the BMW wire adapters so that the outer LEDs will also light up intensely any time the brakes are applied.
Parts/Tools you will need:
- 2 Pre Crimped terminals/wire leads (BMW P/N 61130005197)
- 2 Quick Connects that work with 22-gauge wire
- Pliers to use the quick connects
- Small flathead screwdriver
- Electrical tape (optional)
Begin with your two adapter cables. They are labelled left/right.
Remove the cover on the end of the adapter that plugs into the taillights. Tiger Dave says this is optional, but I found it necessary to insert the new wire, YMMV.
The Connectors are labelled slots 1 through 8, and slot number 4 is empty. This is the slot we will need to trigger the outer LEDs.
On the opposite end of the adapter cable, remove about 2 inches of electrical tape to access the individual wires. (I removed all of the original electrical tape and retaped the whole cable when I was finished)
Use your quick connect to tap the Black Wire with the Green Stripe, and supply power to your new wire (Yellow/Red in the photo, OEM comes black)
Insert the other end of your new wire into slot #4 of the taillight connector.
Replace the cover on the taillight connector, and wrap your cable up with electrical tape if you’d like. As I mentioned previously, I removed all of the OE electrical tape as well as the left/right labels, performed the mod, rewrapped the entire cable with new tape, and reapplied the labels. I found this to be the most organized way of doing things.
Enjoy your taillights! No additional coding has to be done to the LCM for this mod, but don’t forget to code for the LED retrofit if you haven’t done so already.
I think this mod adds to the rear end aesthetic of the car immensely, especially for something that’s super easy, quick and low cost. Hope this helps someone! Thanks for reading!
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