Firstfives.org

Back in the early 90's, I stripped a few e12's to cannibalize them for their parts. I seem to recall that the switches burned amber in the center of the little buttons. So, I was surprised to see my new switch arrive from Germany and be green. Maybe the colors were different for different model years. Mine is an 81. Can any of you help me to know what the original color should be for my 528i? As always, thanks a lot!

My 79 is orange and it lights orange. Not surprised the one you found is a different color, it's likely because of a different supplier today than 40 years ago. Interestingly, original hazard switches say "Hazard" but new replacements have the international triangle symbol for hazard. Don't throw out those old switches!

Particularly when the darn button unscrews! BMW refuses to ship this part to the US. They claim that it was not a stock part for US cars so they wont ship it here, even though they shipped plenty of them to the dealer who installed them when their customers wanted fog lights. It blows me away. I escalated this to the top an they still said I had to find my own supplier in Europe to get one. That I did! All in for about $90US. And yes the shipping was more than the part.

Jcat wrote: ↑Tue Jan 26, 2021 7:06 pm Particularly when the darn button unscrews! BMW refuses to ship this part to the US. They claim that it was not a stock part for US cars so they wont ship it here, even though they shipped plenty of them to the dealer who installed them when their customers wanted fog lights. It blows me away. I escalated this to the top an they still said I had to find my own supplier in Europe to get one. That I did! All in for about $90US. And yes the shipping was more than the part.

Not sure what supplier you used, but I found Schmiedmann (Denmark) out of necessity after purchasing a German-market E30 Touring in 2015. Shipping is a flat fee unless the order is huge, so it ends up being reasonable when I order multiple parts. Not only have I found that they can get parts for USA BMWs that are supposedly NLA stateside, but their prices are so much lower than my normal sources (FCP, ECS, AutohausAZ) that I sometimes order from them and save money even with the shipping charge. Can't say enough good things about them.

Cory

A second on Schmiedmann. A couple of years ago I needed E brake cables on the E12 and while they were about even on price as the cheapest US supplier I found, they got here quicker! Excellent service and they do respond to questions in English even.