Dash Indicator for 'bulb out' on

  • Thread starter Thread starter Anonymous
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Anonymous

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Hello, on my dash he light comes on for a bulb out, but I cant find one out.. except for the rear passenger fog, though I hear they arent used?

I also noticed, when checking, that the passengers side front inner,lower light is on when I leave and lock the car (I have xenons)..


not sure how long it stays on for but When I return to the car it is off- and the engine started :-)

Any ideas?
ps. Im an electrical engineer so know my way round a multimeter, Ive ordered the OBD software if that will help

pss. will I fail the mot with dash fault appearing?

Thankyou :-)
 
Any warning light on the dash is an MOT fail nowadays.

Not sure if the rear fog light is included in the 'bulb out' circuit but it's an MOT fail too so I'd try that in the 1st instance.

Have you checked the number plate lights?

The circuit works by measuring the resistance and putting on the dash light when it's out of tolerance so if you've got any LED bulbs fitted try replacing these one at a time with standard bulbs as they have resistors attached which can fail.

It could also be that a bulb is on it's way out causing a change of resistance (had this on a previous car) or a dodgy bulb connection (rust on the connection etc) so you could try and clean these up too.

Good luck,
Hoz
 
On the two occasions I have had a mystery / intermittent bulb out light it has been one of those mentioned above. Either a side light because the holders seem to be fragile and break round the edges, allowing the bulb to move slightly, or a brake light when the filament had become detached inside the bulb and was moving around. Both worked intermittently, PITA to identify.
 
I have had the same issue on and off for years. Seems to occur more often in cold weather. Strangely, just like yours, mine seems to be linked to front parking / "side" lights. I have found that if I move the headlight switch from "auto" to "side light" then the warning light goes after about 1 minute (and stays off for the rest of the journey). Then I can put the switch back to auto and everything is fine.

Also, if I start up and the bulb warning light comes on and I then switch from "auto" to "headlights" (rather than "sidelights"), then the bulb warning light stays on for the whole journey.

By the way, all of my car's bulbs work fine.

It's just another one of those Z4 quirks that I have learnt to live with. "Faulty" to some people, "characterful" to others....
 
Have you replaced any bulbs with LED's ? Sometimes these are not CANBUS bulbs, despite being marketed as such, and they do trigger the bulb out warning....
 
The car check bulbs when cold and warm, it may be you have a faulty bulb, a quick diagnostic check will tell you which bulb is faulty. You can code the LCM not to check for this or get another bulb.
 
yep I swapped the sidelioght led for a standard bulb

the led was fine-- it was the canbus resistor
 
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