i did not know about this feature? so who has them? is it any good?

 

I thought all E60s had these. I know from LCI onwards they are standard. All it does is light up more of the rear light cluster if your braking hard enough for the abs to kick in. Thats the way I understand it anyway.

 

Dr. Dave,
I have adaptive brake lights; Dandle is right when you brake hard enough they will kick in. My car is a'05 545i and it was standard: adaptive headlights and adaptive brake lights.

 

I have them...but since I am driving it all the time, I have no idea what the back of the car is doing.

I have seen them on other cars and they will get your attention. It is a great feature for those that like to tailgate

 

In the UK im sure it's standard on all. Get someone to follow you and stamp on the brakes, see what happens, don't get too close!!

 

so if "more" of the brake light area lights up, where are the extra bulbs...or does it just glow brighter? if so what wattage does it produce?
im curious as i have not heard this term before.
thanks for the answers so far.

 

If I recall right, each tail light cluster has at least two bulbs for brake lights. Unfer normal braking, one lights up, effectively lighting up a portion of the cluster. Under hard braking, the other one lights up, effectively lighting up the whole cluster. Never seen it in practice, but the graphics shown in the brochure and the user's manual do a reasonably good job of illustrating it:

 

First of all its called Brake Force Display (BFD). This is how its meant to work.

pre-LCI.
EU : The outer brake light works when normal braking, the middle brake light is the BFD.
US : The outer and middle work when normal braking, the circle light is the BFD.

LCI :
EU and US : The outer and middle work when normal braking, the circle light is the BFD.

What most people don't realise is that the BFD works only on really hard Braking, enough to make the ABS come on! This is a worthless feature.

However the more important feature is that the BFD bulb will take over the function of normal Braking should the normal Brake bulb fail. This is an excellent safety feature because although you get an error on the iDrive you can rest assured that atleast for the remainder of your journey the Brakes are being seen behind you.

 

Bruce ,

you forgot to mention, if you have a set of your LCI retrofit cables, BFD works from inner to outer

 

i was going to say bruce how does this work with pre LCI cars that have the OEM LCI lights and your addaptors?
with brakes on i get the fan + the 2 inner bulbs + the circle, so what else lights up when the adaptive system comes on??

can post pics if needed.