2005 Intermittent Headlight Issue

Hi all.

I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced, or heard of, the type of intermittent failure i'm having with my 2005 GS.

Randomly, when riding the low beam headlight will flash off then on several times (I've not counted how many times as I'm usually concentrating on other things when the light goes off at night!). There's no rhythm to the fault and it only happens to the low beam- sometimes it happens every fifteen minutes on a ride, other times it isn't apparent for hundreds of miles (ridden about 350 miles in between the last couple of instances).

The bike has HIDs fitted to both low and main beam. I've swapped components between the low and high setups to rule out the HIDs as the cause. I've also removed the headlight, checked all the wiring for high resistance (I know that some headlights have had heat related failures) and cleaned up all the contacts - including those from the loom to the headlight - but found no issues.

For now I've removed the HIDs and returned to bulbs to see if that makes any difference, although given the above I don't see how it could. My next port of call is the loom / ZFE connections but I wondered if anyone has any other ideas, or experience of the issue?

Cheers
Andy

I'm not sure of the HIDs being a part of the electrics issues that year. Maybe unrelated, but my 07 RT has had a battery drain/indicator failure/brake stop lamp intermittent issue. During checking the whole electric system I managed to find the root cause as being the bulb holder in the rear stop light cluster, if you check them although they are supposed to be plated for electrical contact mine were rusty, they are about £12 to replace each one. I checked the connector to the headlight bulb, and also found some rust starting on it. The handle switch gear on both sides had water/moisture in them, just cleaned them out and packed it again with dielectric grease.

As with all things electrical, the weakness in any system if where cables join and connect, open to the elements expect rusting, if it's High Voltage (HV/HT) cables from the HID controller could be degrading as they are often carbon filaments that do start to die off due to age. Afraid I don't know about much that system BMW use, I more versed in 30kV subsea cables and repeaters.

I would take it to the main stealers and see what they say, there may be a code for it that doesn't ping up the money light. Good hunting!

Mine did this. Was the battery, no other indications. Maybe worth checking it and see if it's charging OK as well a the other checks mentioned.