Whether for your own safety, for roadworthiness testing or to avoid a fine, ensuring your turn signal bulbs are always working is important. In fact, bulbs are wearing parts that will surely burn out after some time and as a consequence need to be swapped out. You’re probably in this article because one of your front turn signals is burnt out and you’re wondering how to change the bulb of a front turn signal on your BMW 3 Series, we’ve created this article to help you do it without hiring somebody and not have to go to your repair shop. In a first section, we will look at the checking a burnt-out front turn signal bulb on your BMW 3 Series and in a second section, how to change the front turn signal bulb on your car..

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How to recognize if the front turn signal bulb on your BMW 3 Series is burnt out or needs to be changed?

When you drive your motor vehicle you don’t constantly have the possibility to examine all the safety equipments of your BMW 3 Series. In fact, you are most likely in a rush and tend to get into your motor vehicle, make your journey and put it down immediately without taking the time to do an periodic check-up. It is consequently essential to take the time to occasionally examine the state of your headlights and turn signals. It’s quite possible that you have a front turn signal on your BMW 3 Series, but that you didn’t notice it. Here are the two simple solutions to check if a front turn signal is burnt out or if you need to swap it fairly quickly:

  • When you stop, turn on the ignition on your car, then alternately turn on your left and right front turn signals and get out of the car to check that they are functional.
  • By hearing to the sound of your blinkers. In fact, there is an audible signal on each car that alerts you of a front turn indicator bulb burnt out on your BMW 3 Series, you will find out that the time between each “click” is much shorter, this suggests that you will have to replace the front turn signal bulb or before. It’s up to you to examine and make sure which one is burnt out by a visual check as on the first procedure shown previously.

You may have another bulb to swap, like the one of your low beam or your position lights, don’t be reluctant to read our blog posts to help you to conduct this replacing.

Replacing the front turn signal bulb on your BMW 3 Series

Now let’s go to the most important section of this article, how to replace the front turn signal bulb of your BMW 3 Series? Take note that this technique is really easy, you will need to access, from the inside of your bonnet, through the wheel arch, or through your bumper to your headlight unit, open it and replace the burnt out front turn signal bulb of your BMW 3 Series. If it is a bulb on your rear turn signal, see our dedicated article. However, here are the details of the actions to follow in order to execute this act efficiently according to the method you want to choose.

Replace front turn signal bulb on your BMW 3 Series through the bonnet:

  • Open your bonnet and clear access to your headlight pods.
  • Use a torx tip to open the headlight unit on your car
  • Unscrew the front turn signal bulb from your car by turning it a quarter turn counterclockwise
  • Replace the front flasher bulb of your BMW 3 Series by the new one (ensure to examine if it’s an orange or transparent bulb).
  • Reassemble and test that the brand-new front turn signal bulb functions.
  • Replace the front turn signal bulb of your BMW 3 Series through the wheel arch:

    This tactic is specially valuable when you don’t have enough space in the bonnet to access the front turn signal on your car:

    • Lift your car, and take off the front wheel on the side you want to work on.
    • Take out your wheel arch with a torx bit.
    • Go to your headlamp block and swap the front turn signal bulb on your car following the same procedures as on the part previously seen.

    Replace the front turn signal bulb of your BMW 3 Series through the bumper:

    On some years or finishes, depending on the options the only simple access you will have to swap the front turn signal bulb of your car will be to pass under your front bumper, there are only a few steps that change from the full process, we will describe them now:

    • Put your BMW 3 Series on a jack or a candle.
    • Remove the screws of the motor shoe of your car(plastic part under your motor) and your shock absorber. Be cautious with the plastic staples which can be delicate.
    • Take off your headlight block and swap the front turn indicator bulb of your BMW 3 Series following the steps seen in the parts seen earlier.
    • Put the whole thing back together again.

    To discover more tips on the BMW 3 Series, take a look at the BMW 3 Series category.