LED Fog Light Retrofit

[gwes]

Just to preface this, this may void your warranty and I’m not responsible for any issues or damage that may occur by anyone using this information to modify their vehicle, this is just provided as some educational information.

Anyways, I decided to go about doing this initially because I just didn’t like the color of my existing fog lights and even with new bulbs the color still looked off somehow. In Canada, our X5’s don’t come standard with LED fogs like they do with Xenons in the US. bms5 gave me some information in a thread here, that gave me some hope that I wouldn’t have to replace my entire bumper to get this done so I figured dig for some more information and give it a go.

Parts/Tools
Brackets: 51117303095 AND 51117303096 (I got them from this ebay seller, you can also find them on any X5 or X5M bumper with LED lights)
Left LED Fog Light: 63177317251
Right LED Fog Light: 63177317252
Fog Light Screws: 07119904288 x4
C Clip Nuts: 07146951655 x4
Replacement Rivets: 07147391324 OR 51717002953 x6 – depending on the color of your car and trim
Trim Tool Set
Rivet Setter
JB Weld 50139
Socket Set
Torx Set

Procedure
To begin this, park the car indoors or covered outdoors and have the lights on a garage door or wall. You’ll want to turn your current fog lights on and then tape where the beams are contacting the wall, by doing this you’ll be able to adjust your new lights properly – or at least to the best of your ability without using some type of special device. In the picture below you’ll see I’ve also taped the headlights. I was retrofitting LED headlights at the same time, so I needed to tape those too, just the fog lights should be fine for this guide.



You’ll need to remove your front bumper first, follow the directions here and here, you don’t need to remove your front wheels or jack the car up for this (it may make removing the bumper easier), but if you do just make sure it comes down where it was so that you can adjust your fog lights afterward.
Note: On step 3 in the bumper removal, you’ll need to peel back the wheel arch cover quite a bit to get your hands in there to remove those two screws, pop the cover out from under the lip of the wheel arch trim to give yourself more room. Unclipping the electrical connections is also best done while the bumper is still on the actual car, you’ll need to also remove the wire clips on either side (your model might vary depending on what features you have, you may need to disconnect the headlight washers etc).

Once the bumper is removed, you’ll want to lay it on a flat, possibly padded surface so that it’s protected and remove the wires clipped around the two brackets you’re going to cut out.

Start by using an x-acto knife or something similar to cut out the current melted tabs. The plastic is very soft and a sharp knife really does cut through it like butter. I’ve circled the tabs I cut out in red in the picture below. The one circled in blue is an existing tab which wasn’t melted – I also found that this tab wasn’t melted on the donor bumper I practiced this on but your mileage may vary.



Once you’ve cut your tabs out, you should be able to gently remove the brackets, leaving the tabs intact, I found that I ended up breaking one of them, they are very fragile. Once those are off you’ll want to prep your new brackets by ensuring that you have holes cut out to the correct size where all the tabs need to go.
Note: I’ve seen two different brackets with the exact same part number, one has the tab I’ve circled in red below and the other doesn’t – this tab seems to just provide some extra support. My original bumper brackets had these, my donor bumper which was from the same model year didn’t have this tab, and the brackets I purchased separately coming from an X5M (which I don’t have) did have them. So I’m not sure, if you end up with or without these it doesn’t seem to matter much you can always glue the actual bracket back directly to the bumper if you feel it isn’t secured enough.



Once you have your new brackets on, glue each of the tabs with plenty JB Weld, add some weight to the top after holding for the recommended amount of time (about 15 minutes or so) and let cure as long as is reasonable for you – I left them overnight, they say the bond is strong within 30 minutes.
Once you’re confident that things are dry and the bumper and your brackets are now moving as one piece you’re ready to put your new LED fog lights in. You’re just going to put the c clip nuts on as shown in the picture below and screw in the fog lights using the hex screws. Also, make sure you put the wires back through the brackets.





Now you’re ready to reassemble, you’re going to follow the guide here in reverse, replacing the rivets with the appropriate ones from the parts section and reconnecting all the wires.

Once you’ve got everything back together you’ll need to VO code 5A1 and may need to FDL code a few modules – what these are exactly I couldn’t tell you for sure. Some of the members here who are more versed in coding might be able to chime in on what exactly needs to be coded. Alternatively, you can always pay someone to remotely code it for you (which is what I ended up doing since I was doing my headlights as well.

Once you have everything back together and the fog lights working, without moving the car make sure to adjust the fog lights to ensure they are angled properly, instructions here

And that’s about it, I went into this having almost no experience taking apart cars or even tinkering with this kind of stuff, but I found this was pretty straightforward.

Hope this helps some other people looking to replace their halogen fog lights!

[bms5]

Originally Posted by gwes

Just to preface this, this may void your warranty and I’m not responsible for any issues or damage that may occur by anyone using this information to modify their vehicle, this is just provided as some educational information.

Anyways, I decided to go about doing this initially because I just didn’t like the color of my existing fog lights and even with new bulbs the color still looked off somehow. In Canada, our X5’s don’t come standard with LED fogs like they do with Xenons in the US. bms5 gave me some information in a thread here, that gave me some hope that I wouldn’t have to replace my entire bumper to get this done so I figured dig for some more information and give it a go.

Parts/Tools
Brackets: 51117303095 AND 51117303096 (I got them from this ebay seller, you can also find them on any X5 or X5M bumper with LED lights)
Left LED Fog Light: 63177317251
Right LED Fog Light: 63177317252
Fog Light Screws: 07119904288 x4
C Clip Nuts: 07146951655 x4
Replacement Rivets: 07147391324 OR 51717002953 x6 – depending on the color of your car and trim
Trim Tool Set
Rivet Setter
JB Weld 50139
Socket Set
Torx Set

Procedure
To begin this, park the car indoors or covered outdoors and have the lights on a garage door or wall. You’ll want to turn your current fog lights on and then tape where the beams are contacting the wall, by doing this you’ll be able to adjust your new lights properly – or at least to the best of your ability without using some type of special device. In the picture below you’ll see I’ve also taped the headlights. I was retrofitting LED headlights at the same time, so I needed to tape those too, just the fog lights should be fine for this guide.



You’ll need to remove your front bumper first, follow the directions here and here, you don’t need to remove your front wheels or jack the car up for this (it may make removing the bumper easier), but if you do just make sure it comes down where it was so that you can adjust your fog lights afterward.
Note: On step 3 in the bumper removal, you’ll need to peel back the wheel arch cover quite a bit to get your hands in there to remove those two screws, pop the cover out from under the lip of the wheel arch trim to give yourself more room. Unclipping the electrical connections is also best done while the bumper is still on the actual car, you’ll need to also remove the wire clips on either side (your model might vary depending on what features you have, you may need to disconnect the headlight washers etc).

Once the bumper is removed, you’ll want to lay it on a flat, possibly padded surface so that it’s protected and remove the wires clipped around the two brackets you’re going to cut out.

Start by using an x-acto knife or something similar to cut out the current melted tabs. The plastic is very soft and a sharp knife really does cut through it like butter. I’ve circled the tabs I cut out in red in the picture below. The one circled in blue is an existing tab which wasn’t melted – I also found that this tab wasn’t melted on the donor bumper I practiced this on but your mileage may vary.



Once you’ve cut your tabs out, you should be able to gently remove the brackets, leaving the tabs intact, I found that I ended up breaking one of them, they are very fragile. Once those are off you’ll want to prep your new brackets by ensuring that you have holes cut out to the correct size where all the tabs need to go.
Note: I’ve seen two different brackets with the exact same part number, one has the tab I’ve circled in red below and the other doesn’t – this tab seems to just provide some extra support. My original bumper brackets had these, my donor bumper which was from the same model year didn’t have this tab, and the brackets I purchased separately coming from an X5M (which I don’t have) did have them. So I’m not sure, if you end up with or without these it doesn’t seem to matter much you can always glue the actual bracket back directly to the bumper if you feel it isn’t secured enough.



Once you have your new brackets on, glue each of the tabs with plenty JB Weld, add some weight to the top after holding for the recommended amount of time (about 15 minutes or so) and let cure as long as is reasonable for you – I left them overnight, they say the bond is strong within 30 minutes.
Once you’re confident that things are dry and the bumper and your brackets are now moving as one piece you’re ready to put your new LED fog lights in. You’re just going to put the c clip nuts on as shown in the picture below and screw in the fog lights using the hex screws. Also, make sure you put the wires back through the brackets.





Now you’re ready to reassemble, you’re going to follow the guide here in reverse, replacing the rivets with the appropriate ones from the parts section and reconnecting all the wires.

Once you’ve got everything back together you’ll need to VO code 5A1 and may need to FDL code a few modules – what these are exactly I couldn’t tell you for sure. Some of the members here who are more versed in coding might be able to chime in on what exactly needs to be coded. Alternatively, you can always pay someone to remotely code it for you (which is what I ended up doing since I was doing my headlights as well.

Once you have everything back together and the fog lights working, without moving the car make sure to adjust the fog lights to ensure they are angled properly, instructions here

And that’s about it, I went into this having almost no experience taking apart cars or even tinkering with this kind of stuff, but I found this was pretty straightforward.

Hope this helps some other people looking to replace their halogen fog lights!

Great write up and photos!

[gwes]

Originally Posted by bms5

Great write up and photos!

Thanks! I'm going to do the same for the LED headlight retrofit, just going to take a while to put that one together.

[albec]

Originally Posted by gwes

Just to preface this, this may void your warranty and I’m not responsible for any issues or damage that may occur by anyone using this information to modify their vehicle, this is just provided as some educational information.

Anyways, I decided to go about doing this initially because I just didn’t like the color of my existing fog lights and even with new bulbs the color still looked off somehow. In Canada, our X5’s don’t come standard with LED fogs like they do with Xenons in the US. bms5 gave me some information in a thread here, that gave me some hope that I wouldn’t have to replace my entire bumper to get this done so I figured dig for some more information and give it a go.

Parts/Tools
Brackets: 51117303095 AND 51117303096 (I got them from this ebay seller, you can also find them on any X5 or X5M bumper with LED lights)
Left LED Fog Light: 63177317251
Right LED Fog Light: 63177317252
Fog Light Screws: 07119904288 x4
C Clip Nuts: 07146951655 x4
Replacement Rivets: 07147391324 OR 51717002953 x6 – depending on the color of your car and trim
Trim Tool Set
Rivet Setter
JB Weld 50139
Socket Set
Torx Set

Procedure
To begin this, park the car indoors or covered outdoors and have the lights on a garage door or wall. You’ll want to turn your current fog lights on and then tape where the beams are contacting the wall, by doing this you’ll be able to adjust your new lights properly – or at least to the best of your ability without using some type of special device. In the picture below you’ll see I’ve also taped the headlights. I was retrofitting LED headlights at the same time, so I needed to tape those too, just the fog lights should be fine for this guide.



You’ll need to remove your front bumper first, follow the directions here and here, you don’t need to remove your front wheels or jack the car up for this (it may make removing the bumper easier), but if you do just make sure it comes down where it was so that you can adjust your fog lights afterward.
Note: On step 3 in the bumper removal, you’ll need to peel back the wheel arch cover quite a bit to get your hands in there to remove those two screws, pop the cover out from under the lip of the wheel arch trim to give yourself more room. Unclipping the electrical connections is also best done while the bumper is still on the actual car, you’ll need to also remove the wire clips on either side (your model might vary depending on what features you have, you may need to disconnect the headlight washers etc).

Once the bumper is removed, you’ll want to lay it on a flat, possibly padded surface so that it’s protected and remove the wires clipped around the two brackets you’re going to cut out.

Start by using an x-acto knife or something similar to cut out the current melted tabs. The plastic is very soft and a sharp knife really does cut through it like butter. I’ve circled the tabs I cut out in red in the picture below. The one circled in blue is an existing tab which wasn’t melted – I also found that this tab wasn’t melted on the donor bumper I practiced this on but your mileage may vary.



Once you’ve cut your tabs out, you should be able to gently remove the brackets, leaving the tabs intact, I found that I ended up breaking one of them, they are very fragile. Once those are off you’ll want to prep your new brackets by ensuring that you have holes cut out to the correct size where all the tabs need to go.
Note: I’ve seen two different brackets with the exact same part number, one has the tab I’ve circled in red below and the other doesn’t – this tab seems to just provide some extra support. My original bumper brackets had these, my donor bumper which was from the same model year didn’t have this tab, and the brackets I purchased separately coming from an X5M (which I don’t have) did have them. So I’m not sure, if you end up with or without these it doesn’t seem to matter much you can always glue the actual bracket back directly to the bumper if you feel it isn’t secured enough.



Once you have your new brackets on, glue each of the tabs with plenty JB Weld, add some weight to the top after holding for the recommended amount of time (about 15 minutes or so) and let cure as long as is reasonable for you – I left them overnight, they say the bond is strong within 30 minutes.
Once you’re confident that things are dry and the bumper and your brackets are now moving as one piece you’re ready to put your new LED fog lights in. You’re just going to put the c clip nuts on as shown in the picture below and screw in the fog lights using the hex screws. Also, make sure you put the wires back through the brackets.





Now you’re ready to reassemble, you’re going to follow the guide here in reverse, replacing the rivets with the appropriate ones from the parts section and reconnecting all the wires.

Once you’ve got everything back together you’ll need to VO code 5A1 and may need to FDL code a few modules – what these are exactly I couldn’t tell you for sure. Some of the members here who are more versed in coding might be able to chime in on what exactly needs to be coded. Alternatively, you can always pay someone to remotely code it for you (which is what I ended up doing since I was doing my headlights as well.

Once you have everything back together and the fog lights working, without moving the car make sure to adjust the fog lights to ensure they are angled properly, instructions here

And that’s about it, I went into this having almost no experience taking apart cars or even tinkering with this kind of stuff, but I found this was pretty straightforward.

Hope this helps some other people looking to replace their halogen fog lights!

Originally Posted by gwes

Just to preface this, this may void your warranty and I'm not responsible for any issues or damage that may occur by anyone using this information to modify their vehicle, this is just provided as some educational information.

Anyways, I decided to go about doing this initially because I just didn't like the color of my existing fog lights and even with new bulbs the color still looked off somehow. In Canada, our X5's don't come standard with LED fogs like they do with Xenons in the US. bms5 gave me some information in a thread here, that gave me some hope that I wouldn't have to replace my entire bumper to get this done so I figured dig for some more information and give it a go.

Parts/Tools
Brackets: 51117303095 AND 51117303096 (I got them from this ebay seller, you can also find them on any X5 or X5M bumper with LED lights)
Left LED Fog Light: 63177317251
Right LED Fog Light: 63177317252
Fog Light Screws: 07119904288 x4
C Clip Nuts: 07146951655 x4
Replacement Rivets: 07147391324 OR 51717002953 x6 – depending on the color of your car and trim
Trim Tool Set
Rivet Setter
JB Weld 50139
Socket Set
Torx Set

Procedure
To begin this, park the car indoors or covered outdoors and have the lights on a garage door or wall. You'll want to turn your current fog lights on and then tape where the beams are contacting the wall, by doing this you'll be able to adjust your new lights properly – or at least to the best of your ability without using some type of special device. In the picture below you'll see I've also taped the headlights. I was retrofitting LED headlights at the same time, so I needed to tape those too, just the fog lights should be fine for this guide.

[IMG]

View post on imgur.com

[/IMG]

You'll need to remove your front bumper first, follow the directions here and here, you don't need to remove your front wheels or jack the car up for this (it may make removing the bumper easier), but if you do just make sure it comes down where it was so that you can adjust your fog lights afterward.
Note: On step 3 in the bumper removal, you'll need to peel back the wheel arch cover quite a bit to get your hands in there to remove those two screws, pop the cover out from under the lip of the wheel arch trim to give yourself more room. Unclipping the electrical connections is also best done while the bumper is still on the actual car, you'll need to also remove the wire clips on either side (your model might vary depending on what features you have, you may need to disconnect the headlight washers etc).

Once the bumper is removed, you'll want to lay it on a flat, possibly padded surface so that it's protected and remove the wires clipped around the two brackets you're going to cut out.

Start by using an x-acto knife or something similar to cut out the current melted tabs. The plastic is very soft and a sharp knife really does cut through it like butter. I've circled the tabs I cut out in red in the picture below. The one circled in blue is an existing tab which wasn't melted – I also found that this tab wasn't melted on the donor bumper I practiced this on but your mileage may vary.

[IMG]

View post on imgur.com

[/IMG]

Once you've cut your tabs out, you should be able to gently remove the brackets, leaving the tabs intact, I found that I ended up breaking one of them, they are very fragile. Once those are off you'll want to prep your new brackets by ensuring that you have holes cut out to the correct size where all the tabs need to go.
Note: I've seen two different brackets with the exact same part number, one has the tab I've circled in red below and the other doesn't – this tab seems to just provide some extra support. My original bumper brackets had these, my donor bumper which was from the same model year didn't have this tab, and the brackets I purchased separately coming from an X5M (which I don't have) did have them. So I'm not sure, if you end up with or without these it doesn't seem to matter much you can always glue the actual bracket back directly to the bumper if you feel it isn't secured enough.

[IMG]

View post on imgur.com

[/IMG]

Once you have your new brackets on, glue each of the tabs with plenty JB Weld, add some weight to the top after holding for the recommended amount of time (about 15 minutes or so) and let cure as long as is reasonable for you – I left them overnight, they say the bond is strong within 30 minutes.
Once you're confident that things are dry and the bumper and your brackets are now moving as one piece you're ready to put your new LED fog lights in. You're just going to put the c clip nuts on as shown in the picture below and screw in the fog lights using the hex screws. Also, make sure you put the wires back through the brackets.

[IMG]

View post on imgur.com

[/IMG]

[IMG]

View post on imgur.com

[/IMG]

Now you're ready to reassemble, you're going to follow the guide here in reverse, replacing the rivets with the appropriate ones from the parts section and reconnecting all the wires.

Once you've got everything back together you'll need to VO code 5A1 and may need to FDL code a few modules – what these are exactly I couldn't tell you for sure. Some of the members here who are more versed in coding might be able to chime in on what exactly needs to be coded. Alternatively, you can always pay someone to remotely code it for you (which is what I ended up doing since I was doing my headlights as well.

Once you have everything back together and the fog lights working, without moving the car make sure to adjust the fog lights to ensure they are angled properly, instructions here

And that's about it, I went into this having almost no experience taking apart cars or even tinkering with this kind of stuff, but I found this was pretty straightforward.

Hope this helps some other people looking to replace their halogen fog lights!

Hey Great instruction you made.

I preparing the same retrofit, and I'm wondering if the electric plug is the same?

[alex_pacific]

Thank you! Great info and exactly what I needed. Got a new bumper but fittings were different so had to take LED fittings from old bumper and install into new one.

[albec]

Hi everyone,

I'm planning a front bumper upgrade with LED fog lights and ACC retrofit. But I'm struggling to find the correct wiring harness for the bumper.

I have all the parts, bumper lights including components for the ACC retrofit. I just need the wiring, so do I make the wiring from scratch?

Hope that some of you can help.

Regards
The geeky upgrade Dane