So the other day I run out to do some errands and come back home, nothing special. I come back out to go out for dinner and I am met with the view below...WTF!!! Looks like my driver's side lens decided to 'leave the building' on my errand run earlier, since I didn't look at the back of my car when I returned...why would I. You can feel a rough surface around the perimeter of the housing, which is where the lens was glued to the housing. It wasn't particularly cold or windy and I didn't back into anything nor is there any damage anywhere. Anyone else have a similar failure??

In any case, I have ordered up a new set of tail light assemblies. Hopefully they will be here by the end of the week and I can get my car back to 'normal' looking. What is interesting is how much brighter the reverse light is on the driver's side w/o the lens over it, you can really notice it when I back up to my garage door. I am sure folks love my white LH turn signal too, it is much brighter w/o the red lens over it too.

 

Wow never seen that on the F54.

Doing a little searching on FB and other places and people have had that happen.





I would replace it with stock or just go with Ziza aftermarket taillights, i know they dont do that.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...il-lights.html

 

Interesting the other ones you found are the driver's side as well, only difference is both of those are the non-LED versions. I am replacing with OEM stock assemblies, as I just don't like the look of the pseudo-union jack style tails, not my cup-o-tea so to speak. My original lens held on for almost exactly 9 years from when I took delivery, so I have a feeling these new units will last well into the future.

I noticed that the bulb location between the LED bands and the reverse light has a bulb in it. Was that the 'rear fog light' location? If so, I need to fire up my BimmerCode and activate that feature, eh?

 

Yep, glad to help.

 

I received my new assemblies today, no damage, but I am very glad I decided to buy both assemblies and not just one. Why, you ask...because the design has changed slightly. If you look at the pic below, the new assemblies have a black border around the outer edge of the lens, which my original lenses don't have. You can see that the passenger side lens in my previous post doesn't have the border, it is simply a silver border. If I had only ordered the driver's side assembly I would have had a mis-matched set that would have not looked good.

Both new assemblies were manufactured in 2025 per the sticker on the assemblies, driver's side was February 5th and passenger's side was May 15th for reference. Now to wait for either some slightly warmer weather to work on replacing them or finish cleaning out the one side of my garage to bring it inside to work on!!

 

Does anyone know when they added the black band around the lens perimeter, just curious? I wonder if it was added to 'mask' off the lens adhesive area from sunlight/UV exposure? I have a feeling my lens fell off due to adhesive failure. In my manufacturing experience, most adhesives are UV sensitive and can degrade over time with UV exposure and that black band would 'hide' the adhesive bond line around the perimeter of the lens. May not just be a cosmetic addition.

 

I have seen them and they are add on and peel and stick.

 

They definitely seem like an add-on/separate piece from the actual outer lens. They are perfectly flush with the lens surface, with a slight seam that you can catch with a fingernail. Kind of wish I took a closer look around that edge before I installed them to look around the backside of the lens. Not going to pull them back off! When I compare that to my original lens, I have to believe the newer lens is different to accept that trim ring as my original lens didn't have a recess to accept a ring like that and still be flush.

 

I replaced my rear tail light assemblies this past Sunday and found it easier than expected. Once I understood how to remove the inner trim pieces, it was just (4) nuts and (2) electrical connectors per assembly to remove/install. You have to remove the upper trim around the window BEFORE tackling the lower panel. There are hook tabs around the upper trim that you can work off by prying up around the outer edge and pull straight back, working around from one side to the other. The LH door has (2) straight pull clips on the thick vertical section, so pull straight out from the door to release. There are (5) straight pull fasteners around the bottom/side of the lower panel. Start at the bottom (3) clips and work around to the (2) side clips. The upper clips are technically straight pull clips, but mine ended up staying with the door trim panel and pulling off the door. Luckily no damage, so I removed from the door trim panel and placed them back on the door before reinstalling the door trim panel. Both trim pieces popped back on quite smoothly. After removing the (4) nuts, I did have to pry the tail light assembly off of the door panel, as the rear gasket was quite sticky, but a little pry with a trim removal tool took care of that. There is one hook clip right next the upper stud/nut that you have to squeeze to allow the assembly to pull free from the door panel. It is likely there to aid the assembly line workers by holding the assembly in place temporarily till the nuts are run down…nice touch, IMHO.



Where I started.

Driver's side replaced to compare to the original assembly on the passenger side.

Finished job with parking lights on.

Inside driver's side door with inner trim panels removed showing mounting nuts and electrical connectors.

Details on the inner-most electrical connector and harness clip.

Details on the outer-most electrical connector and harness clip.

Inside of lower door trim panel with (5) lower push clips and (3) upper push clips.

One of the upper push-clips installed back on door panel before reinstalling door trim panel.

 

While I was at it, I broke out my BimmerCode app to re-enable my inner brake lights that were coded off many moons ago by a software update campaign. That campaign was for meeting a DOT compliance issue with having all (4) bumper bulbs light up for the brakes. I always felt it was better to have all (4) illuminate, especially in bright daylight conditions. I looked over the various threads here and on other forums, but most everything involved getting the rear fog lights work with the fog lights. The couple I did find that talked about getting additional rear brake light bulbs to activate lacked the specific coding detail steps. Somehow Google’s Gemini actually came up with a detailed listing of where to go into the code to turn on the additional brake bulbs…go figure. Not complete on details, but it got me into the proper sub-menu to find what I needed. Here are the details for those who want to play around with their own Clubby.

The details below were gathered from the BimmerCode app.
1) Turn you ignition ON, with engine Off.
2) Open the app, select the Body Domain Controller (BDC_BODY) and activate Expert Mode.
3) Scroll down to the “3065 LceLampMapping4” function group.
4) Scroll down to the “MAPPING_BREMSL_2_L_OUTPUT” function sub-group for the left-hand side bulb settings.
5) Your (6) available options are:6) Select SAVE to save your left-hand bulb selection.
7) Scroll down to the “MAPPING_BREMSL_2_R_OUTPUT” function sub-group for the right-hand side bulb settings and follow the same steps as for the left-hand bulb settings.
8) Navigate back to the BDC_BODY menu and select CODE to write the changes to the controller.
9) I suggest shutting the ignition switch OFF and then back ON before testing the changes. You can adjust your light settings to what you would prefer.

*The outer brake light bulbs only have an ‘ON’ or ‘OFF’ option list, no location change is allowed under the “MAPPING_BREMSL_1_L or R_OUTPUT” function sub-group that exists under the “3065 LceLampMapping3” function group.

Here you can see my choice, with the inner bumper bulbs being illuminated with the outer bulbs, just like how it was delivered back in 2016. I also show the locations/bulbs that will illuminate with the various settings…just replace the “x” with either “l” or “r” for the specific side.

 

@WhatV8 - what a great series of posts.

From the problem to a very detailed written solution with labeled pictures. 👍

I don’t know when the black trim on the rear taillights was introduced, but my pre-LCI 2019 F54 S All4 has them.



So I have a question for you. You provide changes you made using Bimmercode to turn additional lights, the lights on the lower part of the bumper, to become additional brake lights?. In the last picture that you have labeled with the piece of code for each light are you applying the brakes and the lower lights plus the light on the spoiler are going on? Have you had coded the “regular” brake lights in the taillight housing off for the picture ? I may be just confused, but I like the idea of more brake lights and it looks pretty easy to do.

Thanks!
Rob

 

Rob, glad you liked the detail, I was hoping someone could find use for it. It took me a few hours of searching to figure out that I could not find the details of just exactly how they navigated to get to those settings. Luckily Gemini (Google) did give a detailed enough explanation for what sub-menu to drill down into...go figure! Looks like the tail light assemblies added the black outer ring between the 2017 and 2019 model years somewhere. I do like the look of it better than the originals, since it gives the edge of the lens a cleaner look.

For your question, That picture shows my now current brake light configuration with the 3rd brake light in the spoiler and all (4) bulbs in the bumper lighting up with the brake pedal depressed. The outer bulbs in the bumper are in the sub-menu for the '1' brake light settings, which I believe would be considered the 'primary' brake light bulb. The '1' menus only had two selections, either 'on' of 'off', so basically the outer bumper bulbs are always used as brake lights. The '2' menus are what had the six different options that I listed above. I believe they would be considered the 'secondary' or 'supplemental' brake bulbs. The NHSTA/DOT program software update that my car received in ~2018 or so disabled the secondary bulb to meet DOT regulations and only light the outer bumper bulbs. The inner bumper bulbs were originally activated when my car was delivered in December 2016 (my car was a November 2016 build).

IMHO, you would either activate the inner bumper bulbs, rear fog light bulbs or turn signal bulbs as secondary brake lights. The angel ring LED's don't make much sense, as they are not very bright and are on when you turn your lights on. I didn't try putting my lights on and pressing on the brake pedal to see what they do in that combination, as I didn't care for that option. My #2 option would be to use the rear fog lights as secondary brake bulbs, as they are 1) pretty bright, 2) up higher and 3) wouldn't cohabitate with the turn signal bulb.