[BlkBimM3R]

I have 54k on my 01 M3 and I haven't had a problem w/ the lights/electrical until this week. Other than blown out bulbs which was solved by changing the bulbs a while ago. I'm not sure if it is a bad ground somewhere, or the alternator is going (no battery light, or dash lights going on and off).

I started noticing last week that occasionally at start up the radio and a/c display would flicker and I would hear a clicking noise like a relay turning on and off, or like a loud clock clicking about once every second/intervals. This would happen on start up and go away in a couple seconds maybe 5-10 seconds...
but this doesn't happen every time I start the car and has never happened before.

Then I started noticing on the dash/guage cluster the orange car icon & driver rear light would light up and display the rear driver side tail light was blown out. However on my commute to work the car icon/rear driver side light indicator would go on and go off by itself w/ no distinct pattern (car in motion, car stopped, accelerating from a stop, braking, etc) it would light up and go off. At first I thought no big deal I'll just get new bulbs. In the meantime I swapped the bulbs from the rear driver side to the rear passenger side.... however the same thing happened... light indicated the rear driver bulb was out even w/ the bulbs which were fine on the passenger side.

After I got home from work I turned on the parking lights and there were no lights at all on the driver side. Turned the switch off and pulled the bulbs out, then put them back in and viola, they lit up and the car icon and light on the dash was gone. Next time I use the car same thing, no blown lights, then blown lights, then while driving it goes off by itself. I'll get ALL new bulbs from the rear lights when I have time this weekend just to rule out bad bulbs... but the flickering at start up makes me think I have some bad ground/wiring somewhere in the car, OR the alternator is on its way out.

Fast forward to today I get out of work and it is dark outside. I start up the car and hear that clicking noise. The radio and a/c display panels are flickering on and off, then in about 5-10 seconds the car is fine. I turn on my factory HID/Xenon headlights (stock bulbs, stock HID's, stock foglights, etc) and push the fog light switch (factory foglamps too), and both my HID's start flickering and clicking on and off in about 1 second intervals (on, off, on, off, on, off, etc). I immediate turn the HID's off, wait about 10 seconds, then try them again, same thing... flickering on and off at 1 second intervals w/ a clicking noise.

I drove about 4 blocks w/ the parking lights on, HID and foglights off, and daytime running lights (dim lights) on from my office down the street to the main road to get on the highway. I decided it would be dangerous to try to drive w/ DRL's at night on the highway so tried the HID's again and they powered on and stayed on like normal. Didn't want to power on the fog lights in case my alternator was going to die while I'm on the highway... I didn't want to use up more battery power than I needed to.

Drove about 7 miles and got home, in my garage I powered on the foglights and they came right on, didn't affect the HID's or make them flicker, nor did my radio or a/c display.

However something tells me something is either going to go bad in the near future.

In the morning when I power on my car and get the flickering radio and a/c display, the HID's aren't on... so I don't think its the HID ballasts or ignitors since they aren't on/a factor when I start up in the morning.

To those whose alternator's were about to die did your car exhibit these problems (on/off dash car icon/blown out bulbs, flickering radio & a/c panels, clicking noise, flickering HID's, etc?).... or anyone know this cars weak grounding points, places I should look or how to check for a bad/faulty ground?

I'd like to track down the problem ASAP before the flickering blows something out that wouldn't have normally gone bad.

if not, can anyone in So Cal (La/West La) recommend a shop? I don't feel like going to the dealer if I don't have to. If I can't track down the problem, I was thinking of taking my car to The M shop in Eagle Rock, Ca (they specialize in BMW's and Mini's) since I've had good experience (along w/ everyone I know that's been there) and they get great reviews.

Any help on solving this issue is greatly appreciated. I searched for flickering lights which pointed to either a bad brake light panel/circuit board, or bad HID ballast or ignitor. But those threads didn't mention flickering radio and a/c... so either I have another problem, or I have those 2 problems PLUS another problem w/ my car. Also the alternator threads I looked at suggest the battery light (and/or other random dash lights) would come off and on randomly or like at start up. Thanks for any help in advance guys!!!

[BlkBimM3R]

I have no idea if a bad driver side rear tail light harness and circuit board/module would cause the HID blinking/flickering and radio/A/C controls flickering issue...but I think I know whats wrong w/ the driver side rear tail light (which is probably also making the front blinker blink normal or fast off and on).....a bad wiring harness and light panel.

I went to autozone and got all new bulbs 7507 turn signals and 7225 tail lights after the guy looked in the computer and told me it was 7507's all around, I said that can't be right because one of the tail lights is dual filament....he said thats what the computer says and called the next person. so looking in the manual which only gave wattage 21w/4w but no bulb number and getting no help from the guy at Autozone which kept insisting all the lights were 7507's.... i looked through every package of light bulbs they had and the dual filament is bulb #7225... all brand new sylvania bulbs...

changed all the bulbs and same problem... driver side tail light is dead or really dim, car icon and driver rear bulb blown indicator on dash and front parking/turn signal blinks fast/slow on its own agenda.

So I took out the rear trunk light panel and bulbs to look and everything looked fine UNTIL I disconnected the wire harness and looked at the plugs and wiring. Looks like the #4 brown wire (anyone know what the brown wire does?) had some sort of burn or short. From the wires to the plastic plug connector the #4 hole looks to be burnt.... from the light panel board where the harness plugs into the pin's on the bottom of the light panel board the #4 pin looks like it is gone/burned off. I'm wondering if the brown wire is a ground wire which is messing up the tail lights, causing both HID's to flicker, and the radio & A/C control panel to flicker. Since I'm getting intermittent tailights anyway I just left it disconnected... started up the car and no flicker of the radio & A/C display.. then turned on the HID's.. no flicker.. then drove home from autozone w/ no driver rear tail light.. and everything else was flicker free. So this is an obvious problem for the rear tail lights, but I'm not sure if its causing my other problems (HID, radio, A/C)...

now my question is how do I go about replacing the burnt connector that comes out of the trunk carpet and plugs into the bottom of the light panel board? I'll need to replace both the connector and the light panel board since the PIN the wiring harness connects to is seared off/gone... or is this a shop only type repair? How much should it cost?

Also since I need to replace the board... if you were in my situation is it better to just upgrade to the LED tail lights? Do the LED tail lights on 2003+ M3's have this problem w/ the board panel burning the #4 brown wire/pin as the bulb setups do? If this is a good option what have you guys used that doesn't throw the blown out bulb icon on the dash? I've heard some of the cheaper LED tail light kits throw codes... or should I stick w/ the BMW LED tail lights at like $500ish?

Any insight on how to fix the existing tail lights/wiring harness, the LED tail light swap, or the flickering HID's (both), radio and a/c displays would be greatly appreciated.

[BlkBimM3R]

OK I hope its OK to link to other car related websites. I googled the issue and came up w/ this thread which seems like a solution for people who were experiencing the HID flickering and intermittent blown tail light issue.

http://forum.e46fanatics.com/showthread.php?t=512469
which has pictures of a fix for the rear tail light issue.

I found it from this thread:

http://forum.e46fanatics.com/showthread.php?t=567311

when i googled: e46 HID flickering

so looks like a bad ground from the burnt ground pin/connector on the light panel board can cause the HID's to flicker and the tail light to go on and off.

I have all the materials in my garage if this really solves all my HID flickering, rear tail light intermittently out, and radio/A/C control flickering that would be awesome. Its too late right now to try it out, so I'll see if I can get to it this weekend before Super Bowl.

Will post back after I do this fix and drive the car around for a few days to test. Since no one replied and I found a plausible solution I decided to post it. I hope this helps someone out in the future that may experience this problem.

[BlkBimM3R]

I woke up early (5am) this morning and decided to try out the grounding fix since I'd have 2 more work days, and Saturday to test the car out if I did the fix today. My wife thought I was crazy to get out of bed at 5am and go to the garage, but hey the M3 is my 2nd love in my life, and I spent the night w/ her so what can she say...

anyway I had all the materials in my garage already and the ground wire re-route took about 10 minutes for me to do both sides of the tail lights and put everything back together. I turn the ignition to ON position and no orange car icon on the dash or rear light out, I turn on the parking lights.. all good, activate the turn signals all good (slow blink/normal blink..not fast blink as if a light was blown out)... then flicked on the HID's and they fired right up, no flickering.

Turned everything off, then I opened the garage door, and started the engine, turned on parking lights, HID's, turn signals, radio, A/C, everything was good.. no car icon on dash/blown bulb indicator, HID's fired right up w/o flickering, turn signals blinked at normal rate. Decided to drive out to the main road, and about 1 mile out, everything was fine except that I forgot my wallet and drivers license, so drove back home.

Anyway if both your HID's are flickering, Radio & A/C displays flicker, you hear a clicking noise, and you get a rear turn signal out indicator (intermittently) and they are either out (all of them), look dim sometimes, or work intermittently and your turn signals go from normal blink to fast blink, back to normal or no rear tails at all... try seeing if your wiring pin and/or connector looks bad.

From my morning drive, my morning commute, my commute home, then driving to and from the place where we go running... (approx 30 miles total) everything has been working fine on the car and it hasn't exhibited any of the flickering or intermittent issues it had before. I'll see how it goes tomorrow to/from work and the gym.. for now all seems well... awesome... I think it cost less than $2 in materials.... i had all the materials in my garage already so it was definately worth a shot before taking my car in for service.

[Koinonos]

Good find and great effort. I can totally empathize with the M3 as my 2nd love kind of a thang. When I am working on her (my M3 not my wife).. <grin> hours can go by and it is no problem.

When my M3 needs the work I am glad to do it.

[WantAM3now]

I didn't have time to read the whole thread, and all the comments. I read the OPs problem and thought I might be able to help. I was experiencing a problem similar to that, My car would blink and seemed like it was at loss of power. My gauges would blink and lights would go off as they please. My radio would shut of and I would have to take our the fuses often. I checked the battery connection and one of them was loose, after tightening it I never experienced that problem again. Good luck

[ogshooter]

I have this same problem. I am about to go out and get the stuff to do the quick fix. Weird thing is that my turn signal indicators wont light up either... So my list of errors is as follows

HIDs flicker at random, rear tails dont work, nav screen/ radio is blank "not working", alarm seems to be acting up as well or maybe its just me being paranoid.