nicd01

Hi all,
does anyone have a fix for the rear brake light bulb out issue? I had to replace the last cluster as a whole as it was too melted to repair. I bought another non original cluster at a cost of 200$+ just to have it fail again, I have requested a warreny replacement from the vendor but I am under no doubt that it will also fail if they replace it. What has been the way out of this ? as I have been also been having issue with the car shutting off most ecu when parked to conserve battery power when the car is turned off, I also replaced the battery just recently so I am quite sure the two issues are related.

Thanks for any input.

Sirius815

I can't see any problems in the picture - can you get a closer picture of your problem area?

nicd01

What has essentially happened is that the ground terminal for the bulb holder overheats and starts to melt which loosens the the connector and it no longer makes contact with the bulb. The seller has agreed to replace underwarrenty but I know this will repeat. So I wanted to know what others have done to fix this grounding issue?

Sirius815

Interesting. I wonder if the heat is related to high contact resistance between the bulb and metal connector tab... Easy solution is to decrease current draw by switching over to LED bulbs, though I know that doesn't really directly answer your question. FWIW, if you decide to go the LED route, MAXGTRS (on alibaba) has LED bulbs that are excellent for small money (slightly brighter than a 21W incandescent which is about the best you can hope for from an LED bulb for that size opening and available space. One pair I received from them has the anti-flicker build in as well. I'm expecting another shipment in and will report on those if you'd like.

Edit: You can also try some conductive paste (can't think of the name right now).

dcfjord

I have the same problem. The bulb is arcing in the socket which in turn eats the metal tab slowly. I also drove by an identical E61 to mine yesterday and exactly the same tail bulb was out. I will solder a little tab to restore the metal surface.