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d/s xenon behaving oddly

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parabolica
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d/s xenon behaving oddly

Post by parabolica » Sun Nov 03, 2019 12:28 am

I just had to change both sidelight bulbs; I put everything back together and now my drivers' side xenon is behaving oddly. On auto setting, the light won't come on, and the bulb-out warning is on the dash. If I switch on manually, sometimes the light comes on straight away, sometimes it doesn't but it will come on after 5-10 seconds; during the times the light is not on, there is no warning on the dash. Once the light is on, it's stable, and it doesn't flicker or go off again.

My initially thought is I've nipped a wire somewhere or nudged something that's causing it to short out, but I can't seem to find anything. Any ideas?

parabolica
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d/s xenon behaving oddly

Post by parabolica » Sun Nov 03, 2019 11:58 am

I've narrowed down the issue to the igniter; with the wheel off and flap open, you can hear it triggering when you switch on the lights. If the bulb is cold the light seems to ignite without issue. But if you try to hot-start it even after a very short period of time, it sometimes takes 2-3 attempts to fire up, and sometimes it doesn't at all and that's when the warning light on the dash comes on.

Are the igniters known to fail? I had a cursory look at it and couldn't see anything that would be causing it to short out, but my spidey senses are tingling because this has only started happening after I changed the sidelight bulbs.

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ph001
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d/s xenon behaving oddly

Post by ph001 » Sun Nov 03, 2019 12:01 pm

Igniters, ballasts and bulbs are the key components. Only real way you can eliminate is to swap left side to right side.
2007 E85 Z4 3.0Si manual :driving:
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parabolica
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d/s xenon behaving oddly

Post by parabolica » Sun Nov 03, 2019 12:05 pm

Yeah thanks; now I know what to search for I just found a bunch of similar posts on the forum using the search field!

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