Tail light bad connection? e46

Hello all,

I have a LR tail light that occassionally dims and then gets bright
again. I have replaced the tail light bulbs (2) with no help as
advised by the "stealership". The dimming also causes the warning
light indicator to come on sometimes and then it goes out.

I have looked at the tail light assembly and it seems to be a bad
connection or a bad connector.

Any ideas to how I can have this fixed? My CPO warranty may not cover
this.

Car is an 2002 325i.

TIA, William

There is a long discussion and possible fix at
http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum/index.php Seems that the wiring
harness gets worn in some cases and causes that problem among a few
others. The harness goes from the trunk and into the body of the car
near the left hinge and through repeated flexing it get worn and can
even cause a fire. The harness has an additional covering there for
protection and has to be moved out of the way to see If there is damage
[many pictures of damage at that site] Most people had some kind of
damage after looking. BMW know of the problem and sells new wiring
harness, fixes can be seen at that site. You'll have to look around to
find it, use the search engine.

William,

On my car, I had a similar problem with the brake light. After days and
weeks of troubleshooting, I tracked the problem to corroded contact
area. If you look at the areas where contacts are made in taillight
assembly, you might come to discover that there are holes around the
contact areas. I am not sure if you will have the same problem, but from
what you describe, it seems like an intermittent connection issue.

Best regards

weng94 wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I have a LR tail light that occassionally dims and then gets bright
> again. I have replaced the tail light bulbs (2) with no help as
> advised by the "stealership". The dimming also causes the warning
> light indicator to come on sometimes and then it goes out.
>
> I have looked at the tail light assembly and it seems to be a bad
> connection or a bad connector.
>
> Any ideas to how I can have this fixed? My CPO warranty may not cover
> this.
>
> Car is an 2002 325i.
>
> TIA, William
>

Thanks a bunch to all, I have found the contacts to be corroded and
have got them fixed.

Regards,

William