Thank You for the video.... I just did this repair! I found that you do not need to remove the rear plastic hatch cover! I fixed the two on the hatch and the right side. What is interesting is that you really don't have to add much or any solder. Just heading up the old solder fixed the crack! If you have some jeweler's glasses you can actually see the cracks!! The two side lights are 250ish each and the center lights are 150ish each . If you do not repair them you have to replace the whole light. So if you have all of them not working you are looking at 1100 with labor!

Awesome. I love the internet. With the help of your tutorial, I fixed the non-functional hatch LED (for FREE!). Thank you so much for this. P.S. I didn't have to take off the entire hatch panel for access, just the little door. I also didn't have to remove the circuit board from the light; after putting pressure on it to verify that loose connection was the issue, I brought the entire light assembly inside and dabbed solder without removing anything. I just propped it in a little box to hold it still and had two hands free for the job. I pressed the capacitor with a toothpick while dabbing with the solder iron.

Thanks for the video. You do not have to remove the whole "plastic rim" for this job. Once you remove the "plastic bracket," you can easily remove the tail light assembly.

Thank you so much for showing us how to fix it on our own. We are retired and have a fixed income and appreciate you saving us the cost of a new taillight. Thank you again so much!

Thank you so much! three of the trail lights went off. I don't have the tools to do these steps; however, I took the three circuit boards to an electrician for soldering and paid $4 for this. It works!!! Thank you so much again. You saved me more than $400.

Thanks for the tutorial. My drivers side lift gate LED was out. I chased the issue for weeks because after cleaning the connectors it would illuminate intermittently. I was able to remove the lift gate light while leaving it plugged into the car and push on the capacitor to test it. Holding the light in my vise I resoldered the capacitor without having to break off the plastic tab to remove the board. This literally saved me a few hundred dollars!

Thank you so much! I'm not skilled at soldering but managed to get my 2011 F25 working again! :) Just one more tip to share with you guys. If you do not have an appropriate plastic prying tool, a cutter knife will do. Get a cutter blade and gently push it along the bottom surface of the board. It's fixed to the plastic body with a spongy double-sided tape, so it is quite easy to separate. After cutting, the board will just slide out easily.

Thanks a lot, man. My 2 rear left tailights stopped working few weeks ago and I was told at BMW service I have to pay around 500 USD for new ones because the old ones were allegedly non-repairable. You saved me lots of money. I did it all by myself. The only cost was a solder (15 USD) and 2hours of my time. BTW - you don't have to remove the whole lastic rim/bracket to do this operation.

Thank you for this video! I have a vehicle inspection in three days and today two of these backlights went out. Luckily I had my plastic crowbar and soldering iron close at hand so doing all four resistors was not a big job after all! One tip I have to say about that plastic cover on the trunk, you don't have to remove it completely to get to the light cases out, just pop couple of those fasteners near one of the case you want and you are ready the get it out.

Add another happy customer. Fixed the driver side LED taillights on my 2011 X3 F25. Saved me hundreds in repair bill. Thanks very much.

THANK YOU FOR MAKING THIS VIDEO! The right brake lamp assy and left tail gate light assy LED lights both went out about one month from each other. I just repaired them both in about 30 minutes total time. You saved me serious dough! Thank You, Thank you, Thank you..... BTW - comments below are true about tailgate light assy. You do not have to remove the tailgate's interior panel. Just remove snap-on cover, disconnect/remove light bulb assy, remove the 8mm nut with bracket, and out it goes!

Just fixed my light on the tailgate. Exactly the capacitor on the board that you mentioned. A small bit of solder did the trick. As mentioned, no need to remove the trim, the entire housing comes after removing the nut through the access panel

Great tutorial! Please note that it is not necessary to remove the tailgate trim to dismount the tail lights. Once you remove the plastic clip with the 8mm screw a gentle push is all it takes.

Thank you for the information on these faulty lights. Bought two lights for 11' x3 a year ago and three were out within one year. Fixed all in less than an hour thanks to the tips discovered here.

Just want to say a big thanks for this tutorial. I had the exact same issue with one of the rear LEDs. The circuit board is indeed the culprit. I re-soldered the capacitor and lights work again. Its disgusting that for a luxury car, BMW have provided a proper solution for this.

Thanks, took about 10 minutes to fix on my '11 X3. It's crazy how common this failure is. My tail light also had a little corrosion across the metal conductors on the backside of the hatch with the bulbs.

Thanks for showing us. Super helpful. You really don't need to take off the trim for the inside lights. You also don't need to take the board out unless you want to replace it. I just unscrewed the 8mm nut and gave a tap from inside to pop it out. There's a plastic location pin which got stuck and so I had to tap the fixture out

My lens had a crack in it and I was going to be charged $300 by BMW just for labour alone, but after watching your video I did it myself in about 15 minutes. Very helpful video and now I feel I owe you :)

I followed your steps exactly. Three of my four boards were giving me trouble. They all work now. Thanks so much for making this video. Really appreciated!

Your video has saved me hundreds of dollars! Followed these steps and found a new circuit board online for $35 bucks an voila! Thanks again!

WOW FANTASTIC, I fixed mine, noticed driver side was weaker than passenger. Thought it was the led itself, did some research, found your video and voila, was that little register. Sidenote ......if you connect a screw driver between the two sides of the resistor the light output doubles and the board starts to get hot......like I said just an observation. The other ones are fine. Awesome KZfaq, people save a ton of money if your all adept with mechanics as I am. Thanks again......for posting, now I know if the problem persists well it will be a new board, but this solder should hold, put a big blob on there. All good.

Thank you sooooo much . All my four LED on my X3 2011 went out.I spent 600per light to replace it and 2 yrs after they stopped working again.Contacted the BMW head office to report for the defect in the electrical with LED ,they declined to even acknowlege this is a problem. Thank you for sharing.

Thanks I bought the circuits on amazon and it worked great. Saved me 400 euros or more. But attention to remove the tailgate lights you don't need to remove the whole plastic cover. Just push it from inside.

I had the same problem and re-soldered the capacitor as per the video and all is fine. I was able to solder it while still slotted without breaking the plastic support. Also I did not need to remove the back panel. Unscrewing plastic support was enough to remove the light mechanism. Thanks a lot!!!

Thank you! This video was great! I actually didn't see the comments and did end up removing the entire panel, but it worked out great and now I have working lights!

Another victim of the cold solder issue. Two out of four of my LED voltage boards had the identical issu. Thank you very much for your detailed video. Very smart and logical way to approach and diagnose the problem with the 12V source, and pressing of the components until issue is isolated. You just saved me a ton of money!

Great video, thank you. I found out I did not have to remove the large panel on the tailgate. I was able to remove the tailgate lamp via the small access panel door and one 8mm nut with bracket. This saved me a bit of time. I did notice it was the same little part on the circuit boards that needed to be soldered. I also did not have to remove the board from the tailgate lamp. I just placed the lamp in my vice and soldered it while still affixed to the lamp.

Exactly the same capacitor on mine had a dry solder joint! Thanks for the video saved me $400 aud

Great job! One of my taillights failed also. My BMW dealer offered me a new taillight for € 240,-. I tried your method and it was exactly the samen component on the print that needed some soldering. It took me only 30 minutes. Thanks so much1

This worked out great, all it cost me was a soldering iron. Thanks.

Hi. I had a same problem . 1 million thanks.Only 1 thing I would like to say, you don't have to remove the plastic cover from inside the trunk door. Remove the white bracket and the harnes and everything is pops out.

Great video Al! Fixed two left taillights and saved my daughter at least $1000 CDN. I was able to get the light in the hatch lid without removing the large panel. Not sure why you took yours off. I bought LED drivers suggested by others with shipping was about $30.

Great video - thanks for posting. The only comment that i have is that you can take out the lift gate lights thru the access panel without removing the entire interior panel. Like the other comments posted, this saved me the cost of 3 lights and was just a matter of re-flowing the solder on that chip capacitor.

Perfect, exactly as you had described, pulled it apart and low and behold it was the exact Capacitor you suggested, much appreciated. You just saved me a load of money. Thanks again

Thank you for taking the time to make this video. It is very helpful and informative.

Man , you saved me hundreds of dollars! I was about to order the left inner trunk tail light and the right outer tail light to replace them because both have stopped working, then I saw your video about repairing the circuit board.Did some soldering and wallah, they all work now!!! I am a happy man! Only why do u still have to remove the inner cover of the trunk when you can just easily pop the inner LED tail light out from the frame outward?

First video I found when I searched, and you identified my exact problem. Thanks - back up and working again!

Thanks for the video! Unfortunately I already bought the new case before seeing this video, but it still helped me a lot in figuring out how to pull out the old one, and install the new.

Excellent video. Just got done following your steps and pleased to say taillights are fixed. If you don't own a soldering iron just buy it will come in handy if you are diy er

Thank you so much. I .was able to fix my lights myself. First time soldering for me.

Thanks, really appreciate your video, easy fixing!

This really works, like magic. Saved me a lot of money. Thank you!

You're my new God right now! Thanks for this input

Great Video! I need to do this on mine now... Thank you very much!!!

Very well done tutorial - congrats!! In addition, you made sure to include close-up of the circuit board to make it very clear - a very nice touch many tutorial video forget to do.

Great illustration .. Easy to follow and implementation is exactly as shown .. super easy .. Thank You .. Saved me a bundle!!!

Is there any way to salvage the board or is it just better to replace it?

THANK YOU!!!!!! Great video, I will try that as soon as possible BMW should give at least a 10 yr. warranty on this parts

This video was very useful! Thank you very much for putting this together. Very much appreciated!

Omg thank you so much I can't believe I fixed it!

great video!! 100-100 Question>>>I did replace my left inner tail light assembly on my 2013 bmw x5 with a "new aftermarket replacement unit," and now it says 2 stage #$%^& pop up on my instrument dash after 15 minutes of installation and driving, All bulbs looks and are working fine...does the vehicles computer have to be programmed or is there something im missing ..... BTW, the original light had problems with water seeping on the led and ruined the circuit board..( the 2 stage light$%%^* never did cause this error to come on in the dash with the original light assembly ,ty

Thank you so much for posting this video. I love the common sense approach to fixing this type of thing. BMW has a defective part here and we are in essence sticking it to them by not paying their ridiculous prices. I performed the repair and it worked...for one week and then the solder must have broken loose. Did anyone on here perform the repair and have the same issue? I was thinking about trying to track down the circuit board rather than paying for a whole new tail light assembly. If I can find the part number for the circuit board and the source I will post on here. Although it doesn't seem to hold for me (I suspect it is because I am in Minneapolis and it gets pretty frigid here (Either that or I didn't make a good solder) I will find the info on the circuit board. and forward.

I do appreciate this video. I will try this fix and see how it works out

Is there anyway to test the circuit board while it is still hooked up to the car instead of using a batter charger?

Good job !! Unlike many that are so poor/ only comment would be better lighting would help

I have a bmw x3 2012 both are my tailLights aren’t working at night unless i apply the brake will this method works???

Hi, Is it possible to fix 1-series (2011-) f20 the same way ? Thanks a lot

Hello, I have disconnected my headlight, but I have seen that it did not have the 4-pin cable that goes to the board. Does anyone know the reference of that cable or a similar one?

3 of the 4 taillights went out. I rempved all 4 and to my surprise not one has this LED chip board in it, or even a spot for it. Please help if you can. X3 2013

Where would I get the soldering stuff from?

Can I order them ? If so Amazon has them but idk if they would work

Great video! You have saved many people a lot of money!

100K plus vies well done ..my 5 series light are out

Thank you so much!! this for worked for me as well!!

Just did this , it helped me a lot!!! worked like a charm

Thanks for your video. It was a big help.

Thank you, this saved me for 2x300 pounds!

Does this works for 1 Series F20 dim light??

Worked for me, thanks!

Buddy, where do we buy that ballast?

got the same problem and fixed it, thank you very much

Nice Job. I just repaired mine with your help!

Is it possible totdo this with bmw x1?

Was it necessary to remove the interior plastic hatch cover to remove hatch light housing? Can you just undo that 8mm bolt and push the housing out?

Would you be able to do a video on how to remove on the same car X3 dome lights?... no videos on the web of X3

Thanks you so much for this video. It save me a lot of money from fix this. Once again. thanks

Hello, does the outer light comes out same way in 2011-2012 x5?

Hat wunderbar funktioniert! Danke für den Hinweis!

Is it the same driver for F11 inner tailgate lights?

Worked on mine .. Excellent video .. Thank you

Thank you so so much men... you helped me saving a lot of money.. thank you again!!!

My BMW x3 2014 328i don’t have the LED board 😮

Thank a lot! I managed to fix the same issue on my car.

Thank you You are ma man. Man

Can anyone confirm this works for F11?

Great. It worked as you said. Thanks.

So after doing the fix they are back to not working, hmmmm. I wounder if you have to remove all the old solder? or I have to put more solder on. I really only heated up the old solder and added a smidgen of new solder in order to seal the cracks. but the cracks may go deeper.

Just fixed mine, thank you so much!

thank you for savin me some cash and just a little bit of saving the environment.

Is it the same for X3 f35??

Just fixed mine. Thank you!

BMW well done! I have the same problem with x1 f48 2016 :(

You don't need to remove the panel (he called it plastic trim) to remove the upper tail light

Thank you for this you make my day

Merci de partager. Mon problème est réglé.

will this work on an f30?

After repairing, in central computer Is displayed backlight failure, what to do now?

Thank you, great job.

Merci 👍

Good job, worked for me