[Alan l.]

I know its a long shot for anyone willing to do this but worth asking. The one thing I dig about the LCI are the taillights and would like to see if its possible to retrofit them to the pre LCI. The shape and size is identical but wondering if re-wiring is needed and or coding. First step obviously is to see if the wiring / harness changed.

I think a lot of people will be interested in doing this swap assuming its not too much work

Alan

[Wtfitzvi]

Bumping this thread so it doesn't get buried. Im interested in this as well

[Alan l.]

Willing to Venmo someone a little cash for their time

[mobsync]

Originally Posted by Alan l.

Willing to Venmo someone a little cash for their time

So how would one go about taking said pic?

[Alan l.]

Here a video showing the removal of the driver side outer tailight to reveal the harness plug. I couldn't find a video showing how to remove the panel to get to the trunk mounted lights though...

What we would need to see are detail pictures of the actual harness plug shape, shape of the plug on the back of the lights and then detail pictures of each wire and which pin location they are in.


Once we have that for the LCI I can then do the same on my pre LCI to see if theres any chance the harness plug/wires even match up. Even if it does it doesn't guarantee that everything will work but its a huge step nonetheless.

I'm willing to spend the $1200 for the LCI lights and take a gamble that they will work assuming at least the wiring/plug matches.

[Pakoenig]

Anyone looked into replacing the US tail lights with the Euro style w amber LED ? Loved that look at the intro

[Consuldean]

I should be the guy you’re looking for as I have an LCI in order and intend to change to amber light… but : I’m not able to order / get the part numbers for the EU version of the tail light. And order time in EU is several months as stock is given on priority to Factory… or so I was told by a dealership in Europe.

[jad03060]

Wonder if the light assemblies are made in the USA versus elsewhere as that might save on shipping, but labor, hard to tell depending on how much was automated. You'd have to order an EU assembly from someone authorized to buy them, so you're talking about likely shipping, maybe from the US and back again, then the duty.

I agree, though, that it makes much more sense to differentiate between brake lights and turn signals via their respective colors.

[Alan l.]

Does anyone actually have videos of how the LCI US vs Euro lights up?

Typically for other cars to make the euro light work it will require an additional wire plus coding.

[nosnoop]

Originally Posted by Pakoenig

Anyone looked into replacing the US tail lights with the Euro style w amber LED ? Loved that look at the intro

It's sad that we have to jump through hoops and spend a fortune to convert.

We should all write to BMW to keep the original amber rear turn signal instead of "Americanize" it to red.
With Mercedes' decision to use Amber Rear Turn signal for all new car models in North America, and looks like VW is doing the same, this is probably the best chance to give BMW a push for the change to take place.

[jad03060]

Note that all road legal light assemblies in the USA are supposed to be marked with "DOT" on them to indicate they meet the US specs. While it's unlikely an inspector would catch that, if they did, your vehicle should not pass a state safety inspection.

I haven't looked at mine to verify that, but it should be there?! It's often small, so easy to miss unless you're looking for it. I'd be surprised if the Euro lamp assemblies have the DOT marking on them.

[Alan l.]

So i paid for BMW ISTA for the day and pulled the wiring diagram off for my pre lci and a LCI X5. Initial thoughts is that this might not work since BMW changed up the wiring and looks like there an additional module now. whats also weird is that the back up light on the LCI is on the outer light just like before but the wiring is showing its coming from the inner light which i assume the additional module is controlling? I'm not a wiring buff by any means so sharing this on the forum to see if this makes sense to anyone else.

Pre LCI Rear Lights (Outer and Inner)


LCI Rear Lights (Outer and Inner)

[nosnoop]

Originally Posted by Alan l.

Initial thoughts is that this might not work since BMW changed up the wiring and looks like there an additional module now.

My guess is that the extra module is for the "pulsing" or "dim on/dim off" function.

[mobsync]

The only comment that I can offer to this thread is that the screen's view when the vehicle is in reverse is MUCH brighter in the '24 model than the '21 or '22.

At night I can barely see anything in the monitor when backing my wife's '21 45e out of the garage. In my '24 50e, it is so much better. Like TONS better. What I am not sure of yet is if it is due to better and brighter reverse bulbs or is the camera sensor better. Or a combo of both.

[sebseb]

Originally Posted by Alan l.

So i paid for BMW ISTA for the day and pulled the wiring diagram off for my pre lci and a LCI X5.

Thanks for sharing these.
TL;DR LCI tail lights are not compatible with pre LCI vehicles.


Wire Color Legend
SW (Black), BL (Blue), GN (Green), VI (Violet), WS (White), RT (Red), GE (Yellow), BR (Brown).

Wire gauge values are in units of mm2.
1.5 - 14 AWG, 0.75 - 18 AWG, 0.5 - 20 AWG, 0.35 22 AWG.
E62, E60, E58 and E57 are the designations of each housing and *1B refers to the connector on the housing.

In the Pre LCI drawing, A258*5B is referring to the 5B connector on the Body Domain Controller (BDC). By looking at the wiring diagram and the 18 gauge of the 5 wires that go to each housing, my guess is that the BDC is the unit powering those lights directly. For example if you supplied 12V Positive to light housing connector pin 2 and 12V- Return to pin 6, the reversing light will turn on.

BMW completely changed the headlight functionality and how they control the headlights with LCI. Instead of the BDC actually controlling each light bulb, it sends data to the light housing module using CAN Bus. CAN Bus uses 2 wires for communication - Low and High (CAN_L, CAN_H). CAN wire is usually a twisted 22AWG wire pair which is why you see 0.35 for those wires on the drawing. Each light housing gets 12V-Positive which is fed to the RLM** Module. The Module then controls the output intensity of each light based on the data it's receiving. It looks like the reverse lights have also been moved to the inner housing. The module is also responsible for creating the pulsing effect. So you no longer can supply 12V to a set of pins on the connector and have a light come on. You would have to supply 12V to the light housing and transmit the right CAN data frame for the lights to turn on.

You can see the difference between two in the BDC high-level drawing. Pre-LCI has a lot of wires going out of the BDC to each light bulb:

LCI just has 2 wires going out of the BDC to the can bus (drawing is from a G12 LCI Technical Training Document):

[jad03060]

Those changes may also mean that the towing interface must change. Hard to tell for sure. That would make aftermarket choices less likely as they may not apply to as many vehicles, driving the incentive to make one less.

[hunter04]

Any update on this? Interested in doing the conversion in the near future. I did it on an a pre LCI X3 back in February but those x3 LCI lights don’t pulsate so just had to switch around some wires.

[aaaaaaaaaz]

Originally Posted by Consuldean

I should be the guy you’re looking for as I have an LCI in order and intend to change to amber light… but : I’m not able to order / get the part numbers for the EU version of the tail light. And order time in EU is several months as stock is given on priority to Factory… or so I was told by a dealership in Europe.

Wondering if coding change is required, seems like this generation of bmw are not yet code-able

[TheCookieMonster]

Originally Posted by alanzyy

Wondering if coding change is required, seems like this generation of bmw are not yet code-able

its been done with the F90 M5, coding was required. since these LCI cars cant be coded (as of now), we are most likely stuck with US hardware

[almu2min]

Hello !

Did anyone make the switch ? I see that some sellers have the pre-facelift option on the LCI tail lights.

The two kind of lights seem so different in the wiring.

[BimmerXdrive]

This is dissapointing

[psycholander]

The LCI has a computer on the lights like the headlights, in Esys it shows Inner/Outer Left/Right Tail Light Module.

So 4 computers for the taillights. Thinks its because they have dynamic welcome lights.

They are locked for coding so i dont think its possible to get OEM LCI taillights on a pre LCI.