Hello all,
I have been on this forum for awhile, but I think this is probably my first post. I have always loved the look and the feel of the Z4's, and I always have to have something in my garage to tinker with. So, when a local gentleman wanted to trade his Z4 for a Jeep I had refurbished, I decided to take the plunge. For the better part of the last 25 years I have tinkered with all types of cars, from American muscle cars, rat rods, Japanese tuners, rebuilt some motorcycles and now I have this BMW. It is the first BMW I have owned, and I really like to drive it. It is a 2005 Z4 2.5 with about 105K for miles. I've owned it for about 3 months, and I live in the US in SE Georgia. It lives in my garage, rarely goes out in the rain and has only been hand washed since I have owned it. It also just dawned on me, I don't have a good pic of it (I'll work on that) It has needed some minor cosmetic work, like broken cupholders, the notorious cracked 3rd brake light, and some other small stuff.
I am stumped by a headlight issue I am having. Here goes. The lamp out illuminator on the dash has come on once in a while since I got the car. When it came on, I would get out and walk around the car, but all of the bulbs seemed to be working properly. Recently the lamp out illuminator came on and the passenger side low beam headlamp is out. It is a halogen H7 bulb. I pulled the bulb and checked it for continuity with an ohm meter, and the bulb shows good. I also replaced the bulb with a new one, and it still doesn't work. I used a multimeter to see if there was power to the bulb, and there is no power at the plug. I have traced the wires as far as I can by pulling back trim and it all looks good. I can't imagine it is a fuse, because it seems there would be other things not functioning.
I have searched this forum and the WWW and have found most of the posts relate to Xenon headlights with a ballast and an igniter. To my knowledge, there is no ballast or igniter with a halogen bulb (but, it's a BMW, so I could be wrong). I am thinking maybe there is an issue with the light control unit. I believe that is part of the light switch and the vehicle pre-check on start up is also integrated into it. I'm not sure I am going to mess with that yet. My other option is to remove the wheel, some trim and maybe the front bumper to better trace the wires. I assume they will go into a loom at some point and I will lose them.
Question I have. Does this car sense a drop in voltage/continuity and throw the error code on the dash? and when there is an error code for the light on the dash, does it cut power to that circuit for safety or something? I have tried to clear the error with a Scanguage II that I have, but it won't read the headlamp error. I was also thinking of disconnecting the battery for a period of time to see if it would clear the error and maybe restore power to the circuit, but I am not even sure that is a thing.
That is where I am at. Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to be thorough and figured I should work an introduction into it
Erik
I have been on this forum for awhile, but I think this is probably my first post. I have always loved the look and the feel of the Z4's, and I always have to have something in my garage to tinker with. So, when a local gentleman wanted to trade his Z4 for a Jeep I had refurbished, I decided to take the plunge. For the better part of the last 25 years I have tinkered with all types of cars, from American muscle cars, rat rods, Japanese tuners, rebuilt some motorcycles and now I have this BMW. It is the first BMW I have owned, and I really like to drive it. It is a 2005 Z4 2.5 with about 105K for miles. I've owned it for about 3 months, and I live in the US in SE Georgia. It lives in my garage, rarely goes out in the rain and has only been hand washed since I have owned it. It also just dawned on me, I don't have a good pic of it (I'll work on that) It has needed some minor cosmetic work, like broken cupholders, the notorious cracked 3rd brake light, and some other small stuff.
I am stumped by a headlight issue I am having. Here goes. The lamp out illuminator on the dash has come on once in a while since I got the car. When it came on, I would get out and walk around the car, but all of the bulbs seemed to be working properly. Recently the lamp out illuminator came on and the passenger side low beam headlamp is out. It is a halogen H7 bulb. I pulled the bulb and checked it for continuity with an ohm meter, and the bulb shows good. I also replaced the bulb with a new one, and it still doesn't work. I used a multimeter to see if there was power to the bulb, and there is no power at the plug. I have traced the wires as far as I can by pulling back trim and it all looks good. I can't imagine it is a fuse, because it seems there would be other things not functioning.
I have searched this forum and the WWW and have found most of the posts relate to Xenon headlights with a ballast and an igniter. To my knowledge, there is no ballast or igniter with a halogen bulb (but, it's a BMW, so I could be wrong). I am thinking maybe there is an issue with the light control unit. I believe that is part of the light switch and the vehicle pre-check on start up is also integrated into it. I'm not sure I am going to mess with that yet. My other option is to remove the wheel, some trim and maybe the front bumper to better trace the wires. I assume they will go into a loom at some point and I will lose them.
Question I have. Does this car sense a drop in voltage/continuity and throw the error code on the dash? and when there is an error code for the light on the dash, does it cut power to that circuit for safety or something? I have tried to clear the error with a Scanguage II that I have, but it won't read the headlamp error. I was also thinking of disconnecting the battery for a period of time to see if it would clear the error and maybe restore power to the circuit, but I am not even sure that is a thing.
That is where I am at. Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to be thorough and figured I should work an introduction into it
Erik
