Heater control bulb

[si-forks]

My right hand side heater control bulb has gone ,has anyone got any practical tips on how to replace it ? I've read mike fishwicks how to on . net and i'm wondering if anyone on here has done it , I've put it off for far to long .

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[r37]

i did it a few weeks ago, mikes guide is very good at describing it and its what i used. I did find rotating the whole unit round and removing the bulb holders through the hole left by the heater panel to be much easier than fiddling about behind it. Mine were stuck in VERY tightly and needed a set of good pliers on them before they budged. One thing that did go wrong was that both bulbs wouldnt come out of the holder and ended up breaking off and are unable to be removed so be very careful with them. Picking up 2 new holders + bulbs from BMW tomorrow at a cost of allmost £8 each.

EDIT: replace them both, because you just know as soon as you put everything back together the other one will break too.

 

[si-forks]

Thanks r37 some good advice there to be honest i'm not really looking forward to doing it .

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[r37]

its an easy enough job to do but very fiddly, took me about 10 minutes to do in total with pleanty of swearing and scuffed knuckles.

 

[z3cade]

I did it on my 2.8 and it's not to bad to do.. Just remove sterio and unplug the dials and fixing screws then you should be able to slide it out.. And yes the bulbs are hard to pull out..

 

[Brian4]

I did ours a few weeks ago and got the bulbs from BMW as I was told they are a complete unit with the holder so you can't just change the bulb.

1.Remove stereo and cage if after-market, and disconnect battery just in case

2. Remove covers and screws from drivers side footwell. see titan's post in Z3 knowledgebase, Pesky trim screwcaps.

3. Remove 2 screws from top of heater control unit. these are the two facing down at the bottom of the stereo hole. Don't drop them use a magnetic screwdriver.

4. Lift up 2 clips that hold the heater control unit and push gently towards the front of the car, and I think if you remove the fan multi plug you can carefully rotate the control unit in it's opening through 180 deg so that the rear is facing you and pull the bulb holders out from their holes and then replace them.

5. With the footwell loose you can pull it out slightly and shine a torch in to see what you are looking for as you move the heater controls

6. Refitting reverse of above.

Sorry didn't take any photo's when I did ours

Brian

 

[si-forks]

Thanks for all the replies best do it now !

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[r37]

you dont need to loosen the footwell, the unit can be manipulated round to access both bulbs if you dont mind a bit of knuckle scuffing.