DDE Cold Start Fix - United Bimmer Community

**Rooz** · 11-23-2005, 08:13 PM

In the winter times when the temperature hits in the 30's sometimes your DDE will take a good while to get to the good temperature to get on. A fix for that is to hard wire the ballast in...

The ballast is located between the high beams and the low beams, it's a small black box...

GENTLY take it out

Then find the two connectors...

Cut the cables ONE AT A TIME!!!! then hard wire them, and you'r done

**xsperf** · 11-23-2005, 08:44 PM

why 1 at a time? just so you know which one goes to which?

**Rooz** · 11-23-2005, 09:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xsperf

why 1 at a time? just so you know which one goes to which?

Yeah, you have 4 white wires, if you cut them all at once how the helll will you know where to connect them

**xsperf** · 11-23-2005, 09:56 PM

well you could mark em i guess, but thats funny, why would the connectors make the angel eyes go dim?

**Rooz** · 11-23-2005, 10:08 PM

the connection isn't great on them, meaning the power/voltage the ballast is creating, not all/enougth of it is flowing to the DDE's to warm them up quickly to get them to be at full potential...

**komodo** · 11-24-2005, 12:31 AM

What do you mean hard wire them? I don't get the last step...

**voca** · 11-24-2005, 12:35 AM

he means splice the wires together to bypass the connector. just wire em straight up.

**ibew 595** · 11-24-2005, 12:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rooz

the connection isn't great on them, meaning the power/voltage the ballast is creating, not all/enougth of it is flowing to the DDE's to warm them up quickly to get them to be at full potential...

I really doubt that is the problem. Ballasts tend to not work very well in the cold unless they are designed for that application. If it were the connections then they wouldn't work in summer either or wouldn't work well as they get older. Put a florescent light out in the snow and see how well it starts up.

**Rooz** · 11-24-2005, 09:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ibew 595

I really doubt that is the problem. Ballasts tend to not work very well in the cold unless they are designed for that application. If it were the connections then they wouldn't work in summer either or wouldn't work well as they get older. Put a florescent light out in the snow and see how well it starts up.

You might doubt it, but the people who sell this stuff recommend doing this

**bmw4life** · 11-24-2005, 12:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rooz

You might doubt it, but the people who sell this stuff recommend doing this

Has it worked for you?

**Rooz** · 11-24-2005, 03:35 PM

so far yes, but I'll only know for a fact when temperature goes down a lot once again, the weather was decent today

**Spieluhr** · 11-24-2005, 06:51 PM

^^^
he is right, it does help with some of the issues. And those black connectors really are shit. When I was having some issues I shocked myself once. It makes it all so much easier to just splice em togehter, solder, whatever.

**Rooz** · 11-25-2005, 09:41 PM

OK, this is a fix! It was 32 when i got to my car tonight heading home from work and the DDE's led right up...

**ibew 595** · 11-27-2005, 02:34 AM

Glad it worked for you. Kind of sad if you do a mod and it kind of works.

**komodo** · 11-28-2005, 12:37 PM

Added to the knowledge base!

http://www.unitedbimmer.com/kb-e36-d...-start-fix.php