cinergi

Hello,

I have a 2006 (pre-LCI) E60 with the LCI tail light retrofit. I'm thinking of upgrading the incandescent brake light bulbs to LED but am having trouble choosing a bulb. I see some P21W red LED bulbs on eBay for $2 each, and then there's ones like the Weisslicht P21W bulbs for $80 or $90 per pair. What's the difference between the cheap and expensive bulbs? It seems crazy to spend $80 on 2 bulbs...

I plan to code out the bulb failure warnings (cold and warm checks) using NCS Expert, so I don't care about "error-free" bulbs and don't want to pay extra for this. I just want the cheapest bulbs that will be reliable and at least as bright as the stock incandescent bulbs. Any recommendations?

Here are some examples of cheap eBay bulbs, don't know whether they're any good:

RED 1156 BA15S P21W 13 SMD 5050 13 LED Tail Turn Signal Light Bulb Lamp 12V | eBay

RED 1156 P21W BA15S 13 5050 SMD LED Brake Tail Turn Signal Rear Light Bulb 12V | eBay

Thanks!
cinergi

Catbodi

I don't believe you can use full LED brake bulbs because they are not dimmable.

The halogen bulb runs dimmly and then lights up when you hit the brakes.

cinergi

That's on the pre-LCI tail lights. On the LCI tails, the LED light "tubes" are the ones that run whenever the lights are turned on, and the brake bulbs only light (at full intensity) when the brakes are applied.

-cinergi

E60Cruisin'

If you have the LCI tail light retrofit, i'm assuming you're referring to the fog light bulb used instead of the bulbs behind the rods. (ricky brake effect) If so, I used a pair of red philips p21/5 1157 LED bulbs which looked pure red matching the rod color and without that split lag second that you get with incandescent bulbs. Definitely brighter and more defined ring, somewhat like the republic wraps tail light ring mod. I don't have pictures unfortunately because I just got rid of the car. Hope this helps.

cinergi

Actually I am referring to the 2 bulbs behind the light rods, which are the brake lights in my setup (as on the stock setup). I have the Bruce Cables v6.0 with my LCI tails, not the v6.1 with Ricky effect (I prefer the stock brake light setup rather than the Ricky effect).

However, since the fog light bulb is similar to the brake bulbs (brakes are P21W type), your comments regarding Philips apply to the brake bulbs too. I've seen the Philips and I know they'd probably be the highest-quality option, but they are more expensive. I was simply wondering how those cheap $2 eBay bulbs would look, if anyone has tried them (or similar cheap ones). I don't mind paying extra for the Philips if the cheap ones don't work well, but if they do, they're a lot cheaper.

Thanks
cinergi

cinergi

Hmm... found something strange. I checked my tail lights and in addition to the 2 brake light bulbs on each side (which are P21W type), there is also a 3rd smaller bulb hidden behind the fog light bulb. This is also a brake bulb, so it seems there are a total of 3 brake bulbs per side. The 3rd bulb is not listed in the owner's manual and due to its hidden location behind the fog light bulb, as well as its smaller size, it doesn't seem to contribute much light. I'm not sure of its purpose and I never noticed it before. You can see it by looking carefully through the lens. This is for the LCI lights - not sure if the pre-LCI also have this mystery bulb.

Has anybody noticed this 3rd brake bulb? What type is it? I want to order a pair (one for each side) in addition to the P21W bulbs I already have so that I can change all 6 bulbs at the same time. This is annoying because I've already received my P21W LED bulbs (I decided to go with the Philips as E60Cruisin' recommended), and now I find there's another bulb that's not mentioned in the user manual.

Thanks
cinergi

bruce_miranda

You will need to code out the Hot and Cold warnings if you want to replace the Brake light bulbs with LEDs.

I am most interested to see this so called 'hidden' light. As far as I know there are 3 bulbs of equal sizes. Two are for the brake and one is the fog in the EU and the BFD in the US. There is another small bulb at the bottom for the reverse light.
It also sounds like someone 'modified' these lights before you bought them to add this bulb to cut out an LED error. I would bet that LED is connected in parallel with the Turn LEDs.

cinergi

Thanks Bruce. I was surprised as well to see this strange "hidden" bulb which seems to be smaller than the other 2 brake bulbs. I'm pulling out the bulb carriers to install the LED brake bulbs and do the coding this weekend, and I'll take a picture of this bulb.

I don't think the lights were modified because I bought them new from you along with the "Bruce cables" a few years ago. They are the Euro versions with orange turn signal LEDs (which I wanted) and came direct from Germany in Hella boxes. Maybe Hella adds a bulb that's not present in the BMW-branded version of the lights (which are made by Hella)? I thought the Hella and BMW-branded versions are identical, but maybe not.

-cinergi

cinergi

Well I feel dumb... After not being able to find anything online about my mystery 3rd bulb (even from Bruce, the creator of the Bruce Cables), I decided to have a closer look. It turns out that "bulb" is really just a reflection of one of the two real brake bulbs in the housing of the fog light. The housing has a mirrored finish that is so smooth, clean, and free of distortion that I mistook the reflection for a real bulb.

Mystery solved...

cinergi

cinergi

Just to follow up, I did the installation and coding yesterday. No issues, everything works. The new LED bulbs are brighter than stock and have the characteristic fast LED response time, which were my primary reasons for upgrading. Safer and better looks :-).

I had to disable cold and hot monitoring for both the "brake light" and "inner tail light" parameters to get it to work - disabling only the brake lights still resulted in a bulb error, probably because there are 2 bulbs used for the brake lights.

cinergi