Morlow

I have a 1995 Honda Civic DX coupe, stock engine and everything. In the winter when it gets cold I will turn my headlights on at night and the parking lights and taillights come on but the headlights do not come on immediately, they take anywhere from 30 seconds to 30 minutes to come on. The thing is it is based on the temperature outside. The colder it is the longer it takes for the headlights to come on. This starts at around 40-45 degrees F where the headlights don't come on immediately. Once you get down to about 0 degrees F they will take up to 30 mins to turn on.

Now I can still pull the headlight stalk back and the highbeams will turn on immediately but turning the switch to normal lowbeams is where the lights won't turn on. So I can still drive when it's really cold, I just have to hold the stalk back the whole time until the headlights "warm up" and turn on after a while.

So anyone know what might cause this? I'm thinking it might just be the headlight switch/stalk but I really don't know.

boostedcivicsir

i do know that older civics have issues with the head light sockets crapping the bed. the cold may just be causing enough resistance that until they get warm, there is no contact.

-[95cxhatch]-

I have the exact same problem. I just drive with my high beams on for a few minutes because I'm usually running late for work... I am going to troubleshoot this sometime this week. I will post an update.

lilaznkaren

do you have hid's? my friends eg hatch did the same thing, he'd have to turn it on and then wait for it to turn on for minutes. it was hella funny. whoop there it goes.

z6hatchboy

i had that problem on my previous civic so i got to messing with it and jiggled/wiggled the turn **** on the headlight stalk and they came on. The switch/contacts in it is going bad

-[95cxhatch]-

I had a PNP hid kit on my car for awhile... that's probably what fried it... maybe... or the fact that my car has 290,000 miles clocked and it's just worn out.

Jonathan_ED3

This is probably the problem. I know it is on my old Hondas. The colder it gets, the more I have to jiggle the combination switch (headlight stalk, whatever you guys call it) to get them to come on.

Relic1

check the bulb plug first, it looks fine, then go with this
http://www.b18c5eg.com/how2/lightswitch

Morlow

Any more insight on my problem? Is the above fix for the problem I am having?

Morlow

I finally got the courage to try this fix (I'm quite mechanically handicapped) and it was indeed the problem. I cleaned the connections and put it back in and the headlights came on instantly. The annoying part is I tested it before I put the two final screws in that hold the switch in place, and apparently after I put those screws in it shifted the switch enough that now that everything is back together the light switch doesn't really click like it should and the lights take about one second to come on. They still work 100x better than they did before though. Tonight was the first night I drove home from work and my lights never came on the whole way home, so I was starting to get scared it might become permanent. I tried this fix and it worked!

funkswing

Relic1 - I just want to thank you for that link. I just finished cleaning my switch and the lights work just like new!

My problem was the cold weather causing the headlights to not turn on (but all the other lights worked normally). Cleaning the gunk from the switch was the fix AND was easy!

It took 30 min from asking myself "how do I remove the steering column cover?" (Youtube helped with this part) to having everything put back in place and headlights working. My switch my slightly different than the one in the link, but it is easy to figure out where the switches go and what they control.

I used a flat head screw driver to remove most of the gunk, then I used a paper towel soaked with rubbing alcohol to clean everything up. Then just use the excess grease to re-lube all the brass connections (there is plenty of excess grease in there).

Anyone can do this.