For some time the side repeaters of GBMINI have been annoying me. The off white plastic just does not fit nicely with the general red & chrome of the car.
Recently I saw “NEW ERA CHROME OVAL LED REPEATERS” in a MINI Mania UK advert so bought a set. Installation suggests cutting the cars wiring, so I put off installation for a while …
Today I decided instead to modify the side repeaters so that the cars wiring was unchanged (thankfully!); I checked the car connections, and added small pin connectors to the side repeaters, then I took them out to check them on the car – the first one I checked seemed fine, so I modified the second one, and took both out to fit to the car; then I discovered two significant problems!
The first is that they are badly designed – they simply don’t properly fit in the indentation of the side grille! The oval shape of the new lights seems to be too long vertically, and not long enough horizontally, so that it does not sit neatly.
The other problem is that one of the two lights is poorly made – some of the individual LEDs don’t light up properly, and if you apply light pressure to the housing the LEDs will get more dim or bright. Apparently there is a soldering / assembly issue. Of course I can’t return them to MINI Mania now that I have modified the connector, so unless I decide to repair them and like the poor fit, it’s off to the junk pile with them …
M&I / GBMINI 
Well done, sir! Jolly good show, and all that rot.
Quite the story. OMG, imagine if you cut the wiring only to find out the parts weren’t made well & didn’t work.
You might be better just getting a replacement bulb for the repeaters, either LED or a silver-coated amber bulb. I did the latter for my front turn signals and they look much better. I got the bulbs from bimmian.com.
Lord Cull……….ye tell it like it is! You go dawg.