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Just in case there is anyone looking to do this by connecting the right to the left, I ended up taking the trunk threshold out, jumpering the Blue/Grey reverse light on the right side to the Blue/Brown on the left side. Running the wire was pretty easy once you have the trim pieces off and can fish it around. I couldn't find a good route under the car since the tail light areas seem to be sealed off from the bottom of the car. A few pictures and the final result.
all done left side LED, right side regular. Big difference right side reverse tap left side fog tap wire run across the trunk liner
Last edited by r55forme; Oct 18, 2019 at 04:50 PM.
Reason: added pictures.
Nice! If I didn’t have the rear fog light option on my car, I would do this in a heartbeat! Maybe I’ll see if I can run a dual filament bulb on both side, and have the best of both worlds...
Thanks Nik! The funny thing is, I ordered the UK left side light, and it uses an Amber bulb for the turn signal, and has a different design where the center circle is brightly illuminated when you turn on the tail lights. Its almost like a fog light
Eventually I plan to add fog lights adjacent to the license plate in the black plastic surround, but being new to BMW/Mini, I wasn't ready to code the rear fog switch quite yet. I don't know how you'd do the dual filament option since there is only 1 wire going into the left side housing. There is an extra slot, but the fog on the left side is the reverse on the right, and in no world do they co-exist
I'm about to try this with my clubby. :-)
I just wanted to verify which wire is tapped on the left side. Your description specifies the blue/brown wire but the picture looks like you tapped blue/gray. I'm leaning toward the colors in the picture but just wanted to check. Thank you!
Originally Posted by r55forme
Just in case there is anyone looking to do this by connecting the right to the left, I ended up taking the trunk threshold out, jumpering the Blue/Grey reverse light on the right side to the Blue/Brown on the left side. Running the wire was pretty easy once you have the trim pieces off and can fish it around. I couldn't find a good route under the car since the tail light areas seem to be sealed off from the bottom of the car. A few pictures and the final result.
Hi Melissa,
Its been a while, but the pictures don't lie Once you verify your wiring on the right side is the same (I hooked up a test light to the 12v cigarette adapter in the car and put the car in reverse to identify the wire) and then matched on the other side. A quick test to verify is to take power from the 12v socket or connect an alligator clip jumper from the right side reverse terminal and touch it to the left. If you need help I can pull mine back out to walk through it and fix my post
Thanks for this post r55forme, I am also about to try this mod. I just received a UK market left-side taillight with the reverse light but I am also a little confused how to wire it. Can you confirm if my understanding of the wiring is correct? Your car had a rear fog lamp from the factory, and you pulled the connection (I'm assuming positive?) from the reverse light and connected that into the factory fog light's wire? Because your car has a factory fog lamp, you didn't need to connect any ground? Is this correct or am I wrong and your example didn't start with a rear fog? If your car didn't have a rear fog to start with, then what is the wire on the driver side that you spliced into supposed to be for, and where is the ground coming from?
What if I'm trying to do this, without any factory fog lamp hookup? Will I have to run a separate ground as well? Will I have to find a wire crimp that fits in the housing and stick it into the plug?
Thank you!
Last edited by makeitmini; Mar 14, 2021 at 09:21 AM.
My car did not have a factory fog lamp switch, but all of the wiring is there and the bulb socket was in place. I just didn't have a switch in the console.
Getting the Euro left tail gave a clear slot instead of the red slot, so all I'm doing with the jumper is taking the reverse light signal that goes to the right rear to turn the stock reverse light on, and carrying that signal over to the left side to activate the wire that goes to the reverse light on your new euro tail. So the Blue/Grey wire was the original fog light, so it activates the reverse light in your new tail lamp.
No ground or anything needed since that is part of the existing plug. All you're doing is extending the circuit from the right side reverse to your new left side reverse.
Hopefully that makes sense. Happy to help you more specifically if you need it!
Hey thanks for the reply. That does make sense. I haven't opened up the housing on my car yet so I don't know what wires are there but I'm hoping it looks just like yours. I saw other posts about people with R56s needing to pull two wires across for positive and negative so I was a little confused. I have the UK-market housing already but I'm waiting for some warmer temperatures and some LED replacement bulbs to arrive before going out to poke around with it.
Thanks again, I'll follow up here and post whatever I find when I get around to it!
this looks like a nice option too... and most likely will provice MUCH more light than the teensy tiny bulbs on back of Clubbie, even with two reverse bulbs.
To improve the reversing light on most MINIs, search eBay for 100W LEDs. I don't think they can be a true 100W, but they are a great deal brighter than stock. Amber & red are also available.
So, I installed LED lamps next to lic plate, on the holder, and drilled 7/8" hole into plastic to run the wire connector. I then connected to factory wires, by pulling out factory connections (properly) and wrapped the stripped new wires around metal portions then used heat shrink to secure new wire to factory wire + & - harness wires. no errors at all.
no the LED is not yellow.. must just be how the camera took pic.
Last edited by Clockwork; Aug 12, 2022 at 12:38 PM.
So, I installed LED lamps next to lic plate, on the holder, and drilled 7/8" hole into plastic to run the wire connector. I then connected to factory wires, by pulling out factory connections (properly) and wrapped the stripped new wires around metal portions then used heat shrink to secure new wire to factory wire + & - harness wires. no errors at all.
no the LED is not yellow.. must just be how the camera took pic.
I really like what you did here. Looks pretty OEM.
Now that you have had these for a bit do you recommend this mod?
How's the light output & could you please provide a link to the leds?
I have to say, the LEDs I installed do not light up like the front headlights do, BUT they increase visibility over the factory single bulb by like 10 fold..
I will take a 10x improvement over the single reverse light.
Do you have a link where I can get them?
I was also thinking of adding the led license plate bar you posted as well. Figure Im already splicing wires for your led mod, might as well add the led bar too.
