help with park light error code e46 318ti

[wes van v]

Hi guys

I'm new here and recently purchased my first BMW. I over the moon about it.

I have one problem though. I have installed after market angel eyes and the people I imported from told me they were error free. After spending the whole afternoon installing them and testing as I go to make sure they work. Everything was great.

I put bumper back on and tightened all bolts and now I am getting a error. I had to replace my parks with the angel eyes so it is saying error with parks lights. I understand the standard park lights draw 5watts and I was led to believe the angels were 5watts aswel but I have now figured out they are 4watts. Is there a way to remove the error?

I heard of putting in a resister on either side and I am happy to do this but only if it will work and what size resister?

Or getting the error check coded out but I don't know anyone with a code machine.

Any help would be great. Thanks so much.

Car is a 2003 e46 318ti with fogs

 

[Nick]

I put LED number plate lights and my e90 is throwing codes to.
i couldnt be bothered tho :=):

 

[wes van v]

Its just irritating because my front indicators are compesating for the parklights and they are on lightly all the time. The car looks so much better with the angels eyes.

 

[ChrisBrand]

Why did you take the bumper off? Where did you import from and how does your setup look? Most kits go from the ecu box and not tapped into the park lights

 

[wes van v]

I took the bumper off so I could get the head light out to insert the angel eye rings. The angel eyes have a converter box on either side that the eyes plug into then with 2 small wires coming out, a negative and positive. I used this tut to follow but as shows one of the steps where he feeds the wires thru the headlight he has removed his parks.

http://www.bimmerforums.co.uk/forum/f91/bmw-e46-compact-ccfl-how-2-a-t3348/

I like the have them on during the day with the fogs so wiring them to the parks makes that possible

 

[yusufm786]

hey man. If you want to add a resistor and need to size it correctly this is how to do it. Your resistor will have two parameters which you need to worry about - the power rating of the resistor and the resistance of the resistor:

For power rating:

1) We are working with 12V
2) You don't seem to be 100% sure that your angels are 4W, so I will refer to the power rating by the symbol Pangels- that way if you realise that it's not in fact 4W it will be easy to work out the new resistor size
3) We'll call the power of the park lights which you say are 5W Ppark

Therefore, the difference in power which you need to dissipate (use up) in the resistor must be Pdifference = Ppark-Pangels.
In this case, we ascertained that the minimum power rating of the resistor must be equal to Pdifference, which by your numbers is 5W-4W= 1W.

With regards to the resistance rating, based on Ohm's law Resistance=Voltage/Current and we also know that Current = Power/Voltage. Therefore Resistance = (Voltage)^2/Power.

Using your numbers, Resistance = 12^2/1 = 144 Ohms

So your resistor will be a minimum of 1W, 144 Ohms. You probably will not find a resistor with that rating in the shop, so take the closest size larger than that.

On the other hand, if you want to code it out, I can do that for you. I'm in JHB.

 

[wes van v]

hey man. If you want to add a resistor and need to size it correctly this is how to do it. Your resistor will have two parameters which you need to worry about - the power rating of the resistor and the resistance of the resistor:

For power rating:

1) We are working with 12V
2) You don't seem to be 100% sure that your angels are 4W, so I will refer to the power rating by the symbol Pangels- that way if you realise that it's not in fact 4W it will be easy to work out the new resistor size
3) We'll call the power of the park lights which you say are 5W Ppark

Therefore, the difference in power which you need to dissipate (use up) in the resistor must be Pdifference = Ppark-Pangels.
In this case, we ascertained that the minimum power rating of the resistor must be equal to Pdifference, which by your numbers is 5W-4W= 1W.

With regards to the resistance rating, based on Ohm's law Resistance=Voltage/Current and we also know that Current = Power/Voltage. Therefore Resistance = (Voltage)^2/Power.

Using your numbers, Resistance = 12^2/1 = 144 Ohms

So your resistor will be a minimum of 1W, 144 Ohms. You probably will not find a resistor with that rating in the shop, so take the closest size larger than that.

On the other hand, if you want to code it out, I can do that for you. I'm in JHB.

Thank you for that. You desrve a +thank you.

Would it still throw the park bulb error if the resistor I put in was to big (meaning, for example if I do the calculations and I need a 144Ohms but I put a 250Ohms?) Is that dangerous and will the car detect that to much power is being drawn and now throw another error?

I really appreciate your offer on the coding and if I was in the JHB area or was coming up I would definately give you a shout but unfortunately I'm down in Durban

 

[yusufm786]

hey man. If you want to add a resistor and need to size it correctly this is how to do it. Your resistor will have two parameters which you need to worry about - the power rating of the resistor and the resistance of the resistor:

For power rating:

1) We are working with 12V
2) You don't seem to be 100% sure that your angels are 4W, so I will refer to the power rating by the symbol Pangels- that way if you realise that it's not in fact 4W it will be easy to work out the new resistor size
3) We'll call the power of the park lights which you say are 5W Ppark

Therefore, the difference in power which you need to dissipate (use up) in the resistor must be Pdifference = Ppark-Pangels.
In this case, we ascertained that the minimum power rating of the resistor must be equal to Pdifference, which by your numbers is 5W-4W= 1W.

With regards to the resistance rating, based on Ohm's law Resistance=Voltage/Current and we also know that Current = Power/Voltage. Therefore Resistance = (Voltage)^2/Power.

Using your numbers, Resistance = 12^2/1 = 144 Ohms

So your resistor will be a minimum of 1W, 144 Ohms. You probably will not find a resistor with that rating in the shop, so take the closest size larger than that.

On the other hand, if you want to code it out, I can do that for you. I'm in JHB.

Thank you for that. You desrve a +thank you.

Would it still throw the park bulb error if the resistor I put in was to big (meaning, for example if I do the calculations and I need a 144Ohms but I put a 250Ohms?) Is that dangerous and will the car detect that to much power is being drawn and now throw another error?

I really appreciate your offer on the coding and if I was in the JHB area or was coming up I would definately give you a shout but unfortunately I'm down in Durban

Well if you put in a resistor with a bigger resistance it means less current will flow which means your angels will glow less bright. However within reason it should be ok. If you put in less resistance the car may not see the resistor and then throw the bulb out error which it is currently giving you. Again within reason it should be ok.

If you put in a lower rated power resistor (say less than 1w as calculated), then the resistor may potentially burn out. if you put in a higher power rated resistor (say 2w), then you shouldn't have a problem.