Interior & license plate LED light install instructions and pics

Wulffza · 9th July 2012, 04:04

Spent most of the afternoon replacing my interior bulbs with LEDs from Trinity Autosport. There is a 17PC bulb set only which covers all interior lights including glovebox and door cap puddle lamps. This one is $99. I also got the license plate bulb replacements for $25. Oh, you also have BMC air filters? Great, throw those in too.

There are other packages that include full housings which would make the install quicker, but I didn't need them to be any brighter and just wanted to rid the interior of the old yellow light that did not tie in with the instruments or headlights.

Earlier this year I replaced the corona ring bulbs with 10W LEDs from Trinity as well. I believe there is a 12W option now ->10W Angel eye update

I placed the order on Friday morning online, got a call around noon to confirm my order and shipping method and Saturday at noon they were here, cross country, nice. Great customer service from Trinity.

See before and after below. I need a better camera..pics were taken with same camera on same setting, similar light in closed garage.

I will post separately below detailed installation instructions and pictures.

Wulffza · 9th July 2012, 04:11

Installation
The bulbs do not come with any instructions and while it may seem like the simplest job in the world (insert how many accountants does it take to change 17 light bulbs joke here), when you are not familiar with where all the clasps and pins lie you just don't want to take a screwdriver to your pride and joy and stuff something up. I couldn't find a comprehensive install post or video and looking up parts on realoem.com and getbmwparts.com didn't really help in figuring out how the housings were installed.

So, grab a beverage, grab the phone and grab the screwdrivers, lets do this. I am not going to say how long it took me, but with instructions and confidence it would take me less than 30mins to do it again. I only broke two plastic thingies and they can be replaced cheaply so all in all, great result and I learned some things about how the car is put together!

You'll need: Somewhere with light (with may mean sunscreen too); medium size flathead screw driver, medium size Phillips screwdriver, narrow pliers. A plastic trim toolset is a nice to have instead of screwdrivers..

Watch your fingers, those old bulbs are hot, turn them off before working on them!

In the first pic there are 15 bulbs, 2 were missing, the separate package is the license plate bulb.

Door cap puddle lamps (pic 2 and 3):
1. Insert tool on the rearward side of the lens and twist. Pull down that edge and it slides out.
2. Jiggle the bulb out
3. Replace with LED bulb. Ensure the contact points are making contact. This can be very frustrating as I will get to later, but the contact points on the replacements are not the same as the OEMs and you sometimes need to move them around until it works
4. Test operation before refitting the light.
5. Repeat other 3 doors

Visor mirror lights (pic 4 and 5)
1. Insert tool on the windshield side and twist to pop it out
2. Remove and replace bulb, ensuring that contact points have a snug fit on the new bulb. Bend as necessary
3. Refit

Footwell and glovebox (pics 6-8)
1. Insert tool in recessed grooves of lens and twist out.
2. There is a metal heat shield covering the bulbs of these. It slides out towards the wiring, not the other way..
3. Replace the bulb
4. The glovebox doesn't have any slack in the wiring so it may be easier to disconnect the housing from the harness and work with it separately. Use pliers and carefully disconnect the plug, its snug.
5. Hey look, the fuse box sits behind the panel the glovebox. And there's a nice cubby to stash some stuff there too if you don’t have a multidisc CD player, like guns?
-Continued

Wulffza · 9th July 2012, 04:14

Overhead lights (pics 9-14)

These are a beast because when you remove the bulb fittings, 3 each (center light and 2 maps) then remove the bulb from the fitting and install the new one, the new bulb will not slide back in the housing, the white ring on the bulb fitting is too thick. So:

1. Remove the light panels by insert tool and twisting on the rear edge of both

2. Disconnect the wiring from the housing as your arms will get tired working with the thing hanging out the roof

3. Remove the individual light bulbs by twisting the black caps and pulling them out the back panel of the housing, which also services as a circuit board for the bulbs.

4. Remove the clear lenses from the front of the housings, using a small narrow flathead tool. There are some groves that are self explanatory for popping off the lens.

5. Remove the old bulbs from the black caps. Keep one together as a tester for sanity.

6. Twist the 2 wire contact points lying flush with the white cap so that they stand proud and to the sides of the white cap. As a tester, don't do this and insert the bulb into the black cap. You will see that the bulb contact points do not meet the black cap contact points. This is fuster cluck of note, specifically in this housing due to the reinstall implications mentioned in the intro. So what you are trying to do is ensure that it makes contact when you re-seat it.

7. Feed the new bulb from the front of the housing in to meet the black cap at the back of the house. You won't have much leverage on the bulb as it’s a narrow fitting and you will need a good grasp of it as it takes some force to attach reseat it with the black cap. Line up the black cap with where it needs to slide into the circuit board before you mate the two as it gives you more room for re-seating them.

8. Once attached, twist the black cap into place, reconnect the wiring to the housing and test.

9. Did it work? Yes? GREAT, repeat for the other 2 bulbs and complete the other housing. No? Repeat steps 6 and 7 a gazillion times and by sheer act of the little baby Jesus the light will come on. Some may have had less trouble with this. I did only find one other post that had some pics explaining this issue for the overhead lights. If the contacts on the bulb were thinner and it slid right back into the black cap there would be no problem. The issue appears to be that the contact wires on the bulb are too thick and get pushed out the way instead of seating into the cap contact points. These bulbs are a very snug fit compared to the OEM, it may scare you that the sit flush with the map light housing in some places, but LEDs don't give off much heat.., I hope..

10. So the lights all work now, reinstall the front lens, refit the housing to the headliner

-continued

Wulffza · 9th July 2012, 04:17

License plate lights (pics 15-17)
So you're getting the jist of how these housings pop out? Not so fast, the exterior housing fit differently.

1. Remove the license plate and its backing plate. Its easier if you do this. It takes 30 seconds.

2. Insert a flathead tool into the hole in the lens cover for leverage and pull it to the right. This will create some play between fitting and the trunk lid and you should be able to pull the housing towards you starting on the left side just a little, then the right and it drops out to the right. DO NOT INSERT A TOOL BETWEEN THE LENS AND THE PAINTWORK as would seem intuitive from the last 17 bulbs..

3. Remove the and replace the bulb

4. Refit.

Bask in the fact that you did something yourself.

SR71 · 9th July 2012, 04:55

Any error codes yet? They look great.

Wulffza · 9th July 2012, 05:00

No. Don't see why there would be, unless a bulb blows, in which case I expect one.

Alan740 · 9th July 2012, 05:14

You can get error codes because of differences in resistance. That is how the obc determine bulb faults. If you have a resistance out of spec you get a warning. Good replacement bulbs are matched or have built in resistors etc to avoid faults. Cheap ones don't. As I understand it, Trinity's bulbs are error free.

This is such a problem on older BMWs you had to use silver based bulbs, not brass colored. They were called "euro" bulbs. Always a pain it the *** on my old 525i.

ACG · 9th July 2012, 05:22

The pins not lining up with the connectors is a known problem, I posted a few pics on how I bent mine in an L shape to make them work last year, even sent Joe pics to show what I had to do to get them to connect.

IndyRedBeast · 9th July 2012, 07:08

LED interior for our cars is a must! looks so good at night

Hasan Shaikh · 9th July 2012, 08:02

Awesome DIY mate!

Thanks for shring.