Mount: Curt Powered Tail Light Converter with 4-Pole Flat Trailer Connector on a 2011 BMW X3

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Full transcript: https://www.etrailer.com/tv-install-t...
Today on our 2011 BMW X-3, we're going to be taking a look at and installing the Curt Powered Tail Light Converter with 4-Pole Flat Trailer Connector, part number C59236. Here's what it's going to look like once it's installed on the vehicle. This is the dust cap that comes with it. It's just tied to our safety chain connection loop right there. You can also get brackets if you want to mount it outside the vehicle where it's a little bit easier and more permanently mounted, but this is going to do a great job of giving us 4-pole power here for a trailer or a cargo carrier. This kit is going to tap directly into the lines, so you'll have to splice it into the lines and you will have to identify what type of wiring system your car has on it for the lighting, but the instructions will help you do that. This comes with a heavy duty converter box that's going to make sure that you've got plenty of power and it's going to go directly to the battery with a power wire, so that it pulls 12 volts directly from there.

That way it's not putting as much of a strain on the vehicles wiring harness. That module box is also going to help protect the vehicle from any surges or shorts in the trailer. It's going to provide five amps on the turn and brake circuits and it's going to provide 7.5 amps on the tail light circuit, so it should give you plenty of power for the lighting on anything that you'll have behind it. Now, let's show you how to install it. The first thing we need to do to begin our installation is we will need to gain access to our tail lights in order to determine what type of lighting system it is, so that way we'll know how we'll need to hook up our wiring. You can follow the instructions in order to identify your lighting system. What we will need to do is we will need to start by popping this black cover off.

You just pry inwards on it. It'll come loose and you can set that aside. Then we will remove the 10 millimeter nuts that hold our tail light in place. Then we'll do that same thing for the other side. Here on the drivers side in order to remove the tail light, we'll grab onto it and gently pull straight towards the rear of the vehicle. Just slide it off of those studs and the light will come right out.

Then we'll take our connector and we'll push that tab down that's on the top and pull that connector right off. We'll do that same thing on the other side. Now with our connector we can begin testing to see which wires have power for all of our different circuits, but before we do that you will want to be sure to check and make sure that none of them have power when everything is off. None of them have power, now we can begin running our lights in order to test and check to see which ones have power for each circuit. First, we'll do the running lights, so it's going to be on that pin, which is going to be our yellow and black wire. Then next we'll do the turn signal, so it's going to be on that second pin in from the right, which is going to be the blue and green wire. Then finally the brake lights.

That's going to be this far pin over here, which is going to be our yellow and blue wire. Now here on the passenger side, we'll test it the same way we did on the drivers side in order to find which of these is our turn signal circuit. Now I'll take a piece of old airline tubing to use as a fish wire to help fish my wires from underneath, up through the opening in the tail light here. Now in order to give myself a little bit more room to work and make it easier to see, I'm going to lower the exhaust down. It's got some rubber isolators. It's got two that are here on the muffler and then one just in front of the rear axle that we're going to take down. Now it is a good idea to put up a support strap, so that way your exhaust cannot hang too low and possibly damage the component. I used some spray lube to help make removal of the rubber isolators a little bit easier. You can use a pry bar. Once we've got them lose, we can lower our support strap a little bit, so that way we've got some extra room to work now. I take the brown, white, yellow and red wires to my fish wire in order to pull them through up to the drivers side tail light housing. Before pulling that fish wire up through, I want to be sure that I can make the connection to this black power wire that's coming off the module box. I will use a butt connector that comes with the kit, slide it on and crimp that down. Then the other side of that, I'll need to take my length of black wire that comes with the kit, strip one end back, then I can install that. Then the other side of that yellow butt connector. I'll wrap