Hope you can help. 15’ Mini Cooper S. My passenger side headlight went out. Got inside the housing and the plastic connector to the bulb has melted. Called Mini, they said there is no replacement connector and I’d have to replace the entire headlight assembly $600. Well that’s just nonsense as the blinker works and all I actually need is a replacement pigtail. I traced a new connector on parts geek for $10. Suppose I could cut the wires and solder them to the existing harness. How difficult is it to remove the housing and reinstall? There are 3 torx screws attached to these weird mounts. Do they also effect the direction of the beam, and Will I loose alignment if I unscrew them? Any help or advice appreciated! Thanks

 

it's NOT hard if you are simply careful.
There's one fat electrical plug at the bottom of each headlight, with a little plastic latch at the top - you will just squeeze that latch tab in (towards the wire) as you wiggle and pull and it'll come off.

After removing the three screws on mine, I popped my washer units off - but I suspect that's not necessary and not desirable if you can avoid it - I just ordered new (used) headlights for mine and am going to swap - I'll find (and suggest you do too) a YouTube video to confirm that there's a trick to getting them out without popping those off.
I know mine both arrived fully assembled.

I don't know if you saw my HID headlight thread, but my headlight with the red igniter seemed like a piece of crap - the insulation was entirely flaking off the portion of the harness that plugs into the igniter.

If you see my thread you'll see I hit the lottery because I was planning to do exactly what you want to do - rebuild my harnesses so they no longer suck. But in my case I got lucky and my new "used" headlights arrived with a much better harness.

So I can help you out-
It's not a big deal, but I already geared up to redo my harnesses. I can give you a pack of 10 new harness connector pins I bought, which is a few extra to practice getting the crimp technique down. And you'll solder also, so they'll be better than new.
Also, I bought some titanium braided heat wrap for this end of the harness - I'm glad to send you several feet and some heat shrink to secure it, so you could basically do what I was planning:

• remove your harness from the housing
• Take pictures for reference
• Cut the pigtail you melted off - leaving several inches to strip and solder a new pigtail harness too. Basically just eliminating the portion that goes into that hot headlight chamber.
• Use 200° C silicone-jacketed wire. It's cheap. I bought this but will be returning it, unless you want to PayPal me and I can send that too:
  • https://a.co/5hSB1o0
• Solder new lengths of wire to replace what you cut off (matching colors as close as you can - you'll be glad later)
• Heat shrink over each of those solder connections so no bare wires exist
• Install the pins to the ends of the new harness wire - solder and them crimp the strain reliefs
• Slide the length of titanium heat braid over the new harness... Slide two pieces of larger heat shrink on as well, to eventually secure it...
• Pop the pins into the correct locations of your new (formerly melted) harness plug. They just snap in.
• Slide the titanium braid in place as far down against the connector as you can get (but not covering it). You'll need to leave at least a little gap as we need the shrink to do a little of the work to block heat from entering.
• Slide a piece of heat shrink down to that end and shrink it - being careful not to melt your new connector!
• Slide the other piece of shrink over the other end of the titanium braid, overlapping 50/50 with the wires coming out.

You should then have not just a repaired, but an upgraded and protected harness.

That was my original plan. You are welcome to my parts. Message me.

 

Actually yours might be different than mine since yours is newer - so maybe the pins are different - but you are still welcome to this stuff if it helps

 

This is the second time this happened to me but previously it happened to the tail light and was a known problem. This time its my head light

 

Do you happen to have the part number or a link where to purchase it? thank you in advance.

 

Looks like

https://www.ecstuning.com/Search/Sit...h/61132472911/






For just the bulbs

https://www.reddit.com/r/MINI/comments/1kyfv9i/2015_f56_headlight_connector_burnt_up_anyone_got/
https://www.reddit.com/r/MINI/comments/12zliiy/anyone_else_had_a_melted_headlight_connector_and/


H4 this is the one.

https://www.ecstuning.com/b-flosser-...each/4445~fls/

 

thank you for the quick response... but it's actually this

 

Ok then you need that H4 one linked above.

 

Were you able to fix it?