It's not very often you look at the numberplate lamps, probably once a year at MOT time? which, as it happens, is exactly when I took a closer look at mine.

One of the bulbs wasn't lighting up and after taking a quick squint it was immediately clear why.

Apparently my car had been used in the discovery of Titanic's resting place on the sea bed. Behind the lenses you could see schools of fish swimming in the water build up, something like a view from Dr No's underwater lair.


In all seriousness, the seals on the lenses were absolutely shot and the lens itself clouded and dirty. On the side that had failed the lens clipping feature had snapped and was no longer providing any support. The bulb housings were completely corroded too, with a bluey/green oxidation layer covering majority of the metal work.




Along with other service items, I ordered two replacement lenses from eurocarparts.com at £3.36 each (shown above), minus 25% discount for being a member of bimmerforums.co.uk. For those interested the part number was 482110120.


Access to the fixings for the boot trim is from the inside, pulling down the carpeted interior trim. A few Torx T20 bolts hold the trim in place, along with the wiring harness connector, and without much bother the trim was free.



The old fish tank lenses crumbled out without much persuasion then it was onto the task of returning the corroded metal to it's former shiny conductive self.

I borrowed some Halfrauds Halfords own brand electrical contact cleaner from my buddy at work, saved me shelling out some pennies so it was most welcome.


To be fair, it's not bad stuff. I combined this with a wire brush and some elbow grease and the contacts came up pretty well. Obviously the harder to access nooks and crannies weren't spit spot but the main contacts were good as new. In rather poor form I neglected to take a picture of the cleaned up contacts without the lens in, but I did take one with it all finished so you can see the improvement.


It's quite clear (apologies for the Dad pun) that the new lens is far improved over the original. Thankfully both my bulbs now work too, a resounding success on all accounts. 

To conclude quickly then, if you have any issues with the number plate bulbs it's worth 30 mins of your time and a few quid to freshen up the area.

Combine this good work with some multi LED bulbs and it will transform the look of your car's rump when the stars come out. Those keener eye'd readers will notice that I already had some LED bulbs in place. I decided, however, to upgrade them from 2 LED to 6 SMD LED C5W bulbs. Blimey the difference 4 LEDs can make.

I bought the pair of bulbs from brightlights4all, a seller on eBay, for £6.99. They are a non brand cheapy job but they seemed to be pretty good quality on inspection, they also don't throw up any warning lights on my dash either. As any car enthusiast does when new parts arrive, I ripped into the packaging and set about fitting them instantly.


Out with the old (compare with the new) and in with the new. The new ones were quite beastly in comparison.



I've tried to edit out my number plate to avoid my car's details being stolen (it's a conspiracy they're all out to get me) but take my word for it that the 6 LED bulbs are seriously bright. Not only are they bright but they also cast a white (very slight tinge of blue) light which modernises the rear of the car. That old incandescent yellow colour is really starting to look dated.

In the image below you can see the new 6 LED bulb on the left and the old 2 LED on the right. To try and get some perspective, the factory fitted incandescent bulb was close to half the brightness of the 2 LED bulb.


Hopefully this post inspires you to do this little maintenance job, spend a little and make a really noticeable difference to the rear of your car. It's well worth it, if I bought another car with incandescent bulbs it would be pretty high on my list of jobs to do.

Let me know in the comments if you have any hints and tips on cleaning up corroded metal, I'm sure there will be some weird and wonderful methods out there.