[egorix]

Hello, I live in Portugal, but my car was imported from US. Since I am doing conversion - met some problems here.

I have F44 M235i 2020.

I am ordering new tail lights now, but I will have to code them for break lights and turns to be separated + I will need to activate rear fog light (I also ordered new buttons control block).
By chance anyone knows if we have appropriate harness there already for fog light?

Could you advice how to make proper coding in Bimmercode app (Expert Mode I guess) or may be you can recommend someone who knows how to do it remotely.

[TheNine90]

You managed to get this done?

[egorix]

Not yet, I am still waiting for my rear lights to return (with EU version of diodes and fog lamp). Then I will look for someone who can do it. Or will try to do some options with Bimmercode Expert using instructions from other vehicles of g-series... We will see.

[TheNine90]

You can code using ECE typecode but it might affect other functions not associated with tail lights. Best option is to compare the coding file with EU typecode and transfer the coding that are related to rear lights manually.
I can help you with the coding process.

If you have ISTA you can look up the wiring diagrams, if you didnt find a ready made harness.

[egorix]

Still waiting for my lamps to be shipped. Taking too much time...

Once they are here - I will contact you, TheNine90, thanks in advance!

[egorix]

Hello everyone,

I have managed to convert my US rear optics to EU-compliant version with amber turn signals and rear fog lamp.
This procedure took quite a lot of time, research and effort. I was using 2 companies from Poland in the process (later in the post I will mention who was that), who helped me with optics conversion and coding. Most significant and complicated part for me was recreating missing wiring from all 4 lamps to BDC module, which I did myself with success after the 1st try
I did this all for the first time in my life, so it took me a lot of time. Overall I would say I spent around 10 hours in my garage. Mostly because I didn't know how to disassemble trim and when you're doing it first time and trying not to break anything - it takes extra time. However I do no regret, because it's interesting process which makes you learn something new and possibly in the future I won't go to dealer right away, coz many things can be done really easily myself.

I will try to share my experience in my own way. I am not a good writer and English is not my native, so forgive my language just in case
The whole story I will explain like it happened to me, I guess most of the people will find only parts of it useful.

Intro:
I am living in Portugal, where I fled from Ukraine (4 days before the war started). The car was originally bought on Copart auction and had some damage. I did it to save money, however in result I could have bought new car for the same money I spent on parts So this is the way how I got US car in Europe.
Since I want to legalize my car - I need to pass the inspection which doesn't allow red turn signals and will also require to have rear fog lamp to be present in the car.

Step 1: Disassembling the rear lamps
Removing of the rear lamps wasn't very hard. RealOEM website helped me a lot to see more or less how the lamps are mounted.

Remember these facts which will help to remove them:
- Side lamps are mounted with by 3 metal bolts, two are easily accessible from "outside" and one is hidden inside the rear fender. These two easily accessible bots are used also to correct lamps placement, so it took me some time to figure how to put them back correctly later (not so easy).
- You don't need to remove the trim to access the left side tail light, you can get there thought the "window" in trim, which you use to access your tire inflator and towing hook. It's a white plastic thing with a small nut (I think it's M8, but I could be mistaken)
- To get access to the right side lamp - you will have to remove the trim completely, because the wiring goes on the right side or the car, even from the left side rear lamps.
- To have nice access to trunk lid lamps I recommend to disassemble the trim covering it completely. You will have to unscrew plenty of nuts, one of them will be central and is holding the BMW badge.
- After all nuts are unscrewed - don't try to use force to remove the lamp. Each lamp has 1 clips holding it closer to the center of the trunk. Gently slide lamps them to the side, which will keep the clips inside the car. Don't forget to remove connectors of course

Step 2: Converting lamps to EU version.

I decided not to spend 1200 EUR on 4 new lamps and instead I found the Polish company called Power Dust Customs, who does conversion of lamps on rather new BMW cars:
https://powerdustcustoms.com/

The guy on the phone did speak a bit of English, which helped a lot. I had to remove all 4 rear lamps from the car, pack really well and ship using DHL to their shop for conversion. All conversion together with deliveries costed me around 350 EUR. Everything took around a month starting from the moment I shipped a package to Poland. Shipping took like 1.5 weeks of this month.

When I installed converted lamps, they worked like that:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jltmtn40dw...oding.MOV?dl=0

Alternative and easier move would be to buy European lamps (however there will be slight difference in wiring of the rear fog lamp, which I will explain later), however I decided to save a bit of money at least here

Step 3: Control module for rear fog lamps

Using RealOEM I have found the appropriate lighting control module with rear fog lamp button. Bought used one on ebay.
To replace your module - you need to remove the trim piece, which also holds left ventilation module. For me it was easier to first remove left panel, but be careful and use quality plastic tools for trim removal. Never use too much force! Once you managed to remove trim piece - taking module and replacing it - was very easy.
After installation the button just didn't work, because I didn't code anything yet.



Step 4: Adding wiring

This was a surprise for me and I was truly hoping that wires already existed. My car was manufactured in 2020 and seems that BMW decided to save some money on this 4 wires...
The differences in wiring diagrams and pin numbers on both tail lights and BDC module can be seen here:

US:


EU (ECE):


Some facts which helped me to place new wiring:
- I was also replacing my door harness, which helped me a lot, because one of connectors in the door is exactly the same, waterproof one, as in the outer rear lamps:


after repin:


So I took 4 pins with pieces of wire from that used connector. And I also took 4 more from one of the others, they were not insulated and it wasn't needed. Actually insulation is needed only for outer rear lights. You can buy new pins with wires and water protective gums on amazon or ebay, They are basically the smallest size:



- Be very careful when you add new pins to connector. Blue gum is protecting from water empty spaces of connector and use proper tool to remove them, else if you scratch the surface inside the pin hole - you could lose ability to put the pin inside later (happened with me and luckily I had spare connector.
- I bought the wire of 0.5 mm^2, however I think in BMW they use 0.75 by default (I judge by the diagrams). But my cable is actually little bit thicker so I hope it won't cause any headache in the future. To connect wires with pins and the new wire - I used clamps and heatsink. 20 meters of single cable must be enough, but if you find 3 or 4 wires connected together - this is the best option.
- You need to disassemble these elements to place new wiring: rear bumper (you can keep partially in place, but move down 3-4 inches to get to the wiring) to place wiring of left outer lamp, trunk lid trim, cover of right trunk lid holder, trunk inside right side trim (don't forget to disconnect trunk lid opener and 12v socket), sitting part of the rear seats, right rear doorway floor panel, front passenger doorway floor panel with (M235i printed on it in my case), b-pillar bottom plastic cover (first unclip from bottom), 2 panels which closes the Body Domain Control module (right side in the front passenger footwell).
- On the BDC module - you need to use CON5, all 4 wires are connected there.



- Actually you need only 3 wires and pins, because your car is not right-hand wheel drive, so you don't need to add additional cable for right trunk lid fog lamp, but I did it anyways...
- On ECE left-hand vehicles the fog light is in the left trunk light, reverse light is in the right one.
- I was using insulating tape to hold wires together outside and fuzzy adhesive tape for inside. I used small plastic straps to attach new wires to the main wiring along the path.
- To put 2 new cables from outside the car to the inside (on the right side, just under the outer tail light) - I didn't use default "entrance", but did the job a bit easier for me, using one of the rubber covers which are very close to default entrance. I just saw that default entrance doesn't have much space and did this little trick, additionally I have insulated a new hole in rubber with a flexible glue afterwards for bulletproof water resistance



- Little detail: if you don't buy new trunk lid ECE lamps, but only change diodes from white to red ones (for fog lamp) - the wiring will be a little bit different, because reverse light and fog lamps will be mixed up. So you basically (and in my setup I did that) need to put your fog light wire to reverse lamp pin. but in case if your lamps are new or used but ECE - the wiring must work like on diagrams.

Step 5: Coding
Last step you do after lamps are replaced, all the wiring is done and new lights control module is installed.
I tried to do coding with BimmerCode, but unfortunately I couldn't find the right options there. So I decided to pay the professional to do it for me. This was done remotely with the help of ENET Cable (which I got on Amazon) and this company, who is also from Poland and speaks English well:

https://bimmer-remote.com/

After 15 minutes coding was done and everything worked as a charm! So I highly recommend them!

Result:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1o2l0q1l0v...done1.MP4?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qoxp9ya62u...done2.jpg?dl=0

I hope my story wasn't overwhelmingly long and it would help some folks on the path of US to ECE rear lamps conversion for F44 I suspect that for F40 - everything is almost the same.

[YogiPL]

egorix I personally don't need it but I just wanted to say thanks for the write up, this is what makes these boards awesome source of information Cheers from Poland

[ueyustf]

I appreciate the article.

[J-RO]

My head hurts!