Hi everybody,
I've been working on my 2003 Z4 I got from a friend that's in need of some serious attention to get it through state safety inspection. One of the things that needed addressing was the left side HID bulb would go in and out intermittently. I ran across a great deal for a 2003-2005 complete xenon housing on eBay and got it for $100. Today I went about swapping it out and immediately noticed some difference:
1. The existing headlight housing had a 6-pin connector on it.
1. The new (used) headlight housing from eBay had a 7-pin connector with a separate small harness that was blanked off on my existing housing.
I knew something was up, because the existing headlights had HID (xenon) bulbs in them. So, I opened up the existing headlight housing and found this mess:
For comparison, here's how the inside of the headlight housing I ordered off eBay looks:
So basically, I thought this car had stock Xenon headlights. However, I believe it's a stock halogen car that had cheap aftermarket Innovited HID kit retrofitted. Additionally, I don't have it pictured but the HID lense has the part number P6125M on it; if you google that part number some Mitsubishi lenses come up on a Russian forum (that look identical to these), and there was a link to some other Ukrainian retailer as well.
I'm looking for advice on how to proceed. I hooked up the eBay true OEM-Xenon housing and it seems to *mostly* work (see YouTube video of its behavior here:
). The turn signals (*cough*indicators*cough*) flash fast because the LED lights on the outside of the housing are not powered, and I believe the 7th pin powers them (which my stock harness only has 6). Pulling the stalk flashes the halogens, and pushing it leaves the halogens on. This car also doesn't have the harness for the headlight position motor (see first pic); so I'm not sure how that affects the performance.
I'd love to find a way to make this new housing work, and source another from eBay for the other side. I've seen a few posts about Xenon conversions, but they typically wind up in people arguing about PFL cars being bi-xenon/single xenon/etc. Otherwise I may just find a way to convert the whole setup back to stock halogen. Ideally I'd like a stock system and not have to deal with aftermarket HID kits.
Thank you! I'll probably be editing this post as I think of more things to add.