alohalc, i beat iceman!!!

 

doesn't mean anything if you beat him in this forum <_<. beat him in person is the real deal !

 

I appologize for the long post.....but this is what I know about this subject:

BOTH the rear AND the front turn signals on BOTH European and US E60's have a clear lens with an amber bulb, so when the bulb lights up the turn signal looks amber.

What you have noticed on the front of the US E60 is only an amber reflector. By law all cars in the US have to have amber reflectorized side markers up front and red reflectorized side markers at the rear (in most cases, including the E60 these are integrated with the red section of the taillights). Also, by US law there needs to be an amber light up front and a red light at the rear either under or near these reflectors. The E60 (even the European versions) have 5 amber LED's right above that area in the headlight unit, so the amber reflector is strictly a reflector which will only glow if an external light source is aimed at it.

It used to be that you could buy just the turn signal/reflector section and replace it on certain models (E36, some E46's, etc.). In these cases the turn signal/reflector section was a completely separate piece from the headlight assembly. Then BMW started to incorporate these side markers as part of the headlight assembly (eg. E39). Well, at least with the E39 BMW would sell the entire front lens/cover separately from the headlight. This means that you could buy the clear version of the European front cover/lens that included the clear side lens, and replace the covers of the US headlights with these. This would cost about $250-$300 for both sides on an E39.

However, starting with the X5 and now with the E60 BMW does not sell the front lens/cover separately. You have to buy the entire headlight. Bekkers sells the Euro Bi-Xenons for $1980 and the Euro halogens for $598. This is not that bad if you have US halogens and want to replace them with Euro Halogens, but if you have the Bi-Xenons, then it is too expensive. I have asked Jon Bekker to look into it and see if the front covers (which include the clear sidemarkers) are interchangeble between the US Bi-Xenons and Euro Halogens. If they are then even if we have US Bi-Xenons we could buy the Euro halogens and take off it's front cover/lens and use it as a replacement of the US Bi-Xenons front cover/lens. This way we would keep the Bi-Xenons and add the clear side markers without spending almost $2000. I contacted Jon Bekker again last week and he promised to look into it as soon as he gets a hold of a US E60 with Bi-Xenons.

The other option is to open up the headlight unit and try to remove the amber reflector. It is a separate piece from the rest but I think its probably glued or bonded in another way. As far as I can see by looking at the amber reflector from the outside there seems to be a hollow cavity behind it. So if the amber reflector is removed it may look ugly, unless a replcement piece is placed where the reflector used to be. This may involve buying a cheap clear taillight from an auto parts store and then using the original amber piece as a template to cut a clear piece and place that where the reflector used to be. Or perhaps buying a thin sheet of plexiglass that has the linear pattern of the Euro side marker and cutting a new piece out of that.

One way or another I will make this work.....but first I have to pick up my car in Munich and wait for it to come back to California sometime at the end of the year.

 

jet190rs,


Welcome aboard!!!!!!


Central Cali

 

rodybmw,

Can you see if maybe they can sell just the euro reflector piece somehow? I hate the yellow reflector but $600 is still to much money to get rid of it.

 

If you guys goes on ebay.de and search for E60, you'll see some Bi-Xenon headlight unit for sale for a few hundred euros. It's no brainer. We can ask ICEMAN order for us.

 

I have the BMW Parts CD and there is no part number for any of the individual components of the E60 headlight. The only option is to buy the complete headlight. That is why I suggested that if we have to buy the complete headlight we should try to see if the "cheaper" Euro halogen's cover/reflector would fit the US Xenon headlight. I know and agree that $600 is not cheap, but its much better than $2000.

 

But if you read German you will notice below that the pic is misleading. It is only for the right unit. Left not included.