[ryan970]

Yea kind of a stupid question but is it possible that your car can catch of fire because of your light bulb. I read a couple threads about there cars catching on fire and some people said it might have been there headlights.I was thinking of switching the oem bulbs for gp thunder bulbs because the oem's are getting weak and i'm worried about messing up something.

[ghost_rider]

if u install higher capacity bulb than indicated i think it might melt some plastic around because of heat just replace with the same bulb type.
also it will display a fault on your dashboard

[ceb]

Originally Posted by ryan970

yea kind of a stupid question but is it possible that your car can catch of fire because of your light bulb because i read a couple threads about there cars catching on fire and some people said it might have been there headlights and i was thinking of switching the oem bulbs for some gp thunder bulbs because the oem's are getting weak and worried about messing up something...

Is it possible? Of course. The aftermarket headlights may draw more power overloading the system.

An electrical failure causing lots of money to repair is more likely than a fire though.

[Philz BMW]

eee gads man....

A run-on sentence consists of two or more main clauses that are run together without proper punctuation. Sometimes even sentences which are technically correct are easier to read if they are made into shorter sentences. We often speak in run-on sentences, but we make pauses and change our tone so people can understand us. But when we write, no one can hear us, so sometimes we must break our sentences into shorter units so that they do not sound run-on.

Incorrect: The boy showed us his tickets someone gave them to him.

Correct: The boy showed us his tickets. Someone gave them to him.

Incorrect: We often speak in run-on sentences, but we make pauses and change our tone so people can understand us, but when we write, no one can hear us, so sometimes we must break our sentences into shorter units so that they do not sound run-on.

[ryan970]

Originally Posted by Philz BMW

eee gads man....

haha my bad for not making correct sentences.

[ryan970]

Originally Posted by Philz BMW

eee gads man....

better now

[ryan970]

Originally Posted by ceb

Is it possible? Of course. The aftermarket headlights may draw more power overloading the system.

An electrical failure causing lots of money to repair is more likely than a fire though.

It's not likely to cause a electrical failure is there.

[hipnotic]

it is possible but not likely

[ceb]

Originally Posted by ryan970

It's not likely to cause a electrical failure is there.

If you use a bulb that draws a different amount of current then an electrical failure is very possible.

Our cars are, in general, very reliable, but the electrical system does not like modifications and problems may not appear right away.

[Legion5]

Is anyone here actually speaking with any knowlege of electrical systems? Or are they just speculating? eg "It's German therefore it must catch fire easily".

It's very unlikely that you'll overload the electrical system because it's overbuilt. You'd have to be doing really crazy things to cause an overload and fire. Your GP thunder bulbs won't cause anything to overload. Though because they use a blue coating to make them whiter the bulbs sometimes contain more fillament to make up for the loss of light output. This means that the bulb itself runs hotter. What could happen is that the plastic might melt around the bulb casing, which may cause some wires to short due to their casings melting and probably nothing will happen, or a fire might happen.

Your best bet to figure out if your headlights will melt or if they are built strongly enough not to is just do a google/forum search and see if it's happened to anyone. If it hasn't then chances are that our headlights are resistant enough not to melt.

The reason people were asking the guy with the car that caught fire if he had aftermarket bulbs is because that would be an easy way for BMW to blame him for starting the fire.

[Brey335i]

Any bulb that is not bought from a BMW Dealership at 200% markup will cause your car to spontaneously combust and turn to ash...