Originally Posted by Merdashti

Rpav,

The lights are the same they come standard on both cars - both will work!


Regards,
M.

Originally Posted by 2damfunky

I went to the dealer yesterday, Was putting an order in for the retrofit kit. I mentioned to the parts guy that I already had the LCI tail lights and I had a set of dynamic headlights from a LCI M5 and he couldnt confirm if it would work. He has now sent a email to germany to ask them if the M5 headlights will work with this kit. Not sure when I am going to get an answer as the email gets sent in english then gets translated to german etc. Could someone please confirm if I can use the M5 headlights on my car. I currently have dynamic adaptive headlights.

Many Thanks,

Vejay

Originally Posted by thomassteen

You can use the headlights fine. Depending on the year of your car you may need new light control module and new xenon balast etc.

I am about to make this upgrade on my 2003 520i - i got used headlights that had the Xenon bulbs and ignitor. But since my current xenons are old style d2s I need to upgrade the balasts.
Also some say that the AHL module needs to get upgraded, but I plan on trying my luck with the one I have.... From ETK it looks like all modules can be used - lets see
I am currently waiting for the new balasts to arrive - then I will make the upgrade.

Originally Posted by tnycman

I did the pin-out based on a diagram i downloaded here, somehow I had messed up the brown cables, I plugged all the cables into the 12 pin retrofit adapter and it seems that I can't remove them to switch it around.. I don't wanna force anything, but whoever had to switch wires around how did you removed it from the adapter ?

Originally Posted by RootKit

In the end--well worth the effort, frustration and time to get the lights installed on the car. The "welcome lights" effect is quite sweet! When unlocking the car, the angel eyes and the LED rods in the rear fades on. The angel eyes DRL is very bright...it catches people's attention. And yes an LCI looks without the ugly amber color refector on front bumper!

There are a few minor issues. For US market--I never had and still don't have the ability to turn DRL on or off after the retrofit. But I think LCI cars now have DRL access through I-drive.

The ALC can be reused according to the installation manual. I reused my ALC but ended up with a flashing green light when switch is on auto--meaning my adaptive don't work. The installer checked for faults but found none. A couple members here have similar problem. One member replaced the ALC and had no problems afterward. Not sure if this has anything to do with older model year.

Cornering lights don't work. When turning left or right it is suppose to light up on LCI cars at speeds below 25mph. I think it is a software bug and/or only for cars from 03/2005? I have seen LCI cars making turns but i have never notice the "cornering light". I Don't think our pre-LCI cars had it anyways in the first place. There is a thread that discuss it in depth.

Installation:
I used this Attachment 48136 revised as of 1/2008. Do not use the older one I posted a while ago earlier in the thread.
For a while, BMW put the kit on hold since they had to fix the installation manual--they really screwd up! On the hardware side, the cable have wires to the wrong pins (will mention about it later). And on the encoding/programming side, apparently gave some crytic hard to find name and wrong pathway. Add everything up, a person would have to go through hell to get it to work a few months ago. :thumbsdown: Now things are a lot smoother.

The front headlights installed easily. The old plugs were clipped off. A new socket plug was wired with the 11 wires for each headlight. In all for left and right headlights there were total of 3 wires with slight color variation. One was brown/yellow instead of being brown as in manual, etc. When it comes to gauge/thickness of wire--it is virtually the same. The differences probably have something to do with my 12/2003 built car--I assume cars after 03/2005 will color match exactly.

The facelift cable connects the old plug to the new LCI taillight. Each left and right cable has a wire to be routed all the way to the front of the car. The two wires connect to the light module plug. I can see that the light module cable wire loom don't come out far enought--modifying the pins is a squeeze. Nevertheless, fairly straight forward just tedious amount of time in removing the moldings when routing the wires to the front.

OK I'm grateful Andy545 brought this up in his thread--the retrofit cable contains mismatched pins! To save the dealer from troubleshooting, I corrected the cable before having them installed. It only take a few minutes. On my cable (both left & right) pin 4 & 6 need to be swapped! The 6 wires should match up with the colors of the 6 pre-LCI wires according to the diagram (pg 21). I'm surprised how BMW slipped on something that is simple. A basic quality check would have caught the mistake. Definitely, check your left and right cable!

Encoding/programming:
Before the Installation, the dealer had the car updated to Progman version 28 via SSS. After getting the hardware installed--It was quite a PITA to locate the procedure name to get the headlights and taillights functioning properly. Eventually after some speculation, the location was under "retrofits" and then "lights package". I think sometimes translation from German to English gets lost somewhere.

Thanks to forum member Merdashti for helping me get started with parts needed. Please note most of the parts listed are for cars with adaptive xenon headlights. For regular bi-xenon without adaptive...the light module & headlights will be a different part# and also less parts to buy.

1 Retrofit Cable Set [ 61 12 0 432 110 ]

2 AHL Headlights
- Left [ 63 12 7 177 749 ] US
- Right [ 63 12 7 177 750 ] US

2 Taillights
- Left [ 63 21 7 177 281 ] EU
- Right [ 63 21 7 177 282 ] EU

1 Light Module [ 61 35 9 154 944 ]
(Needed for cars before 9/2006)

2 Xenon Bulbs D1S w/ Ignition Element [ 63 21 7 162 862 ]
(Needed for cars before 1/17/2005)

2 Lamp Holders "ring clips" [ 63 11 7 162 087 ]
(Needed for cars before 1/17/2005--to hold xenon bulb in housing)

2 Control Unit Xenon Light "ballast" [ 63 12 6 937 223 ]
(Needed for cars before 1/17/2005--for D1S Xenon bulb)

2 Electronics box ALC (uncoded) [ 63 12 7 189 312 ]
(adaptive light control, "motor/actuator")

Originally Posted by tnycman

On the LCI Retrofit diagram there are 2 senarios

1. For cars with Bi-Xenon, 2.With AHL.

What about the ones with both options? Somone installed Bi-Xenon with AHL ?

I see that the only difference is pin 8 which is not used on AHL, but used on Bi-xenon.

Originally Posted by BlaSTiWi

Yes the smaller box is the adaptive module.

You have to check the headlight most likely it uses D1S where ignitor built into the ballast so if you get ballast from eBay make sure fit D1S or D2S which you have to make sure