My Car Eats Light Bulbs for Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner :)

[Detrich]

finally got around to changing the passenger-side turning bulb... again. (i just changed out the entire socket + bulb about 3 months ago.) turns out the contact points just keep melting and therefore damage the contact points.

cleaned up the contact points with an alcohol swab, put everything back together, warning went away, and went for a drive. 5 minutes later, the warning light came on AGAIN. this time it was the driver-side headlight bulb burned out... <LOL> made another trip to auto-zone before they closed, $32 dollars later for a pair of sylvania H7's and i'm back in business.

<LOL> what a pain this is... anyone else out there have a 3 that eats light bulbs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner? [80?]

 

[Jaxguy87]

im right there with you... except the warning lights go on and off... and the bulbs never go out... lol

 

[Kirby]

I had the same issue with my 94 - burned contacts. I had to buy two new rear bulb holders.

I know this will sound like BS, but my local dealer's parts man, who really is quite good, says that the problem is we are not using BMW bulbs. He says that the BMW bulbs are designed to run cooler than Sylvanias, etc. that we get at the local parts store.

Well, it's true that the cars never have this problem when new from the factory... maybe he is right. I bought BMW bulbs with the new holders, and had no more problems......?

 

[Detrich]

hmm. normally that would make a lot of sense- except the socket & bulb that i bought 3 months ago was from the bmw dealer- ie oem part w/ bmw packaging. and, the bulb contact still melted. (i won't overpay for that part ever again... lol)

go figure...