E39 HID woes, bypass?

[zara 0]

So I have a 2000 E39 facelift that comes with factory HIDs. I recently changed the bulbs to a much brighter output one and have started experiencing cold start woes.

Initially the passenger side bulb will light up, then flicker off immediately when cold. When the car has been warmed up though, it will operate no problem. As the temperature dropped these few days, both sides are doing the same.

From some Googling, I've come to the conclusion that it is either the cold or the amperage in the car (or the combo of both) that is creating this problem. I have yet to try changing bulbs but I've bought these bulbs from the same shop before and had no such problems, albeit they were in Japanese cars.

My question is, if after changing the bulbs and the problem exists, can I be safe to say it's the ignitors/ballasts that are on their way out? Or could I simply wire in a capacitor/HID harness that may fix the issue.

If the ignitors are indeed kaput, is it possible to bypass the standard ballast all-together and install an aftermarket ballast?

Cheers

[Allanw 1053]

So I have a 2000 E39 facelift that comes with factory HIDs. I recently changed the bulbs to a much brighter output one and have started experiencing cold start woes.

Are you sure they're factory fit, not retrofit, or aftermarket? Or perhaps has the LCM been changed and not correctly coded? I thoguht if the LCM was coded for the "Xenon Ignition" option that it would attempt to re-ignite the xenon, and then bring up the low beam warning if it still didn't work.

I have a genuine retrofit kit on mine, and I have coded the car to the xenon settings - it once didn;t ignite the left low beam, but it re-ignited it a second or so later.

Are the bulbs you bought brighter, or bluer? If you've gone from 35W to 50W, the ballast may have issues igniting the lights because of the higher resistance perhaps.

[zara 0]

Are you sure they're factory fit, not retrofit, or aftermarket? Or perhaps has the LCM been changed and not correctly coded? I thoguht if the LCM was coded for the "Xenon Ignition" option that it would attempt to re-ignite the xenon, and then bring up the low beam warning if it still didn't work.

I have a genuine retrofit kit on mine, and I have coded the car to the xenon settings - it once didn;t ignite the left low beam, but it re-ignited it a second or so later.

Are the bulbs you bought brighter, or bluer? If you've gone from 35W to 50W, the ballast may have issues igniting the lights because of the higher resistance perhaps.

The car appears to be factory fit HIDs as it has factory ballasts, though strangely with cable ties around them. The production date of the car is 28th June 2000.

I'm not sure if it attempts to re-ignite the light but it does display check low-beam when the light is not working.

The bulb I bought is both brighter (in my eyes) and bluer, I think 6000K? Not sure about wattage tbh.

When you say genuine retrofit, did you mean that you bought genuine ballasts and fitted them on a non-HID car?

[euroriffic 603]

Make sure the wattage for the lamp is correctly rated to the ballasts, if not Thatl be the problem. Have seen a similar problem at work before in shop lighting where they havn't been correctly matched

[KwS 2378]

Chuck your vin (last 7 or so digits, usually starts with a letter) into this, http://www.rubmw.ru/vincode/eng/ and itll tell you the options your car shipped with originally, including whether it shipped with xenon or not.

[Allanw 1053]

If it's june 2000, it's not an actual facelift -they started september 2000. Could still have had factory xenons though, and been upgraded to angeleyes later.

The genuine BMW retrofit kit DID use cable ties to secure the ballasts. It was a "no-code" retrofit, meaning there were adapters fitted to stop check messages, though my car didn't need them and I fitted a later LCM and coded it to suit anyway.

See if it's factory fitted - if it's a retrofit, that may explain the difference in errors.

You can PM me your VIN last 7 digits and I can check if you want.

[zara 0]

Checked the VIN and the car shipped with xenon.

Changed the bulbs back to standard and guess what....no issues on cold mornings.

I haven't checked yet but the aftermarket bulbs may very well have been 50 or 55w, going back to 35w seems to solve the problem

[Allanw 1053]

Checked the VIN and the car shipped with xenon.

Changed the bulbs back to standard and guess what....no issues on cold mornings.

I haven't checked yet but the aftermarket bulbs may very well have been 50 or 55w, going back to 35w seems to solve the problem

Probably the wattage issue.

The factory system monitiors the load, it expects a current peak upon xenon ignition, then a drop to a certain level which eventually settles and remains quite stable. The higher wattage ones may upset the measurements.