I have an 02 accord with the CATZ HID conversion(9006 bulbs - 4100k). It's been installed for over a year now with no problems. All of a sudden, today, it would flicker then shut off after a minute.

I also noticed that the malfunctioning bulb is more bluish than the functioning one.

I've checked the connectors and nothing seem to be loose. I have no regular 9006 bulb to connect to the stock connectors to see if the HID ballasts are not getting the power it needs.

Any ideas? Will I need a new bulb or ballast?

 

To me it sounds like the bulb is going bad. Have you taken it out and visually inspected it?

 

I swapped the bulbs to make sure it's not the ballast. Now that I've looked at it, the bulb is indeed about to go.

Anyone got a spare bulb they're selling?

 

Thought these bulbs wernt supposed to burn out very often? Sounds just like the Blue cheap bulbs. My stock bulbs lasted 6 years and cost $8 so why is it $400 bulbs last 1 year. I had thought about putting HID's in my car but have about decided not to as I didn't really want to spend that much and now I'm hearing of bulbs going bad and have also heard of a fair amount of other problems and then a lot of people have reported getting headaches for driving with them for increased amounts of time.

 

According to this faq, this is a feature, not a failure--

http://faq.auto.light.tripod.com/hl-hid-bulbs.htm

"What is color shift?

The labeled light color on an HID bulb is an average that it will maintain over 2-3000 hours. After passing around 100-500 hours the phenomenon "color shift" will take place. Color will change slightly from a yellowish tone to a crisper bluer tone. The magnitude of color shift will vary depending on brand, model and rated color. It is a very gradual change and unless paid close attention to, a customer might not notice(right). OEM 4100K Bulbs manufactured by Philips has been reported to have a more noticeable color shift than OEM 4100K Osram. OEM 4100K Bulbs manufactured by Philips has a colorshift of approx 250K after 500 hours, which will bring it to up to 4350K.

Asian manufactured bulbs has been reported to have little or no color shift. Most of them come with output stealing blue filters, which may be part of the cause."

"CATZ HID is manufactured in the ONLY high quality HID factory in Japan. CATZ HID Systems are used as OEM products in the Japanese Domestic Market. CATZ HID Upgrade kits carry (International Quality of Manufacturing Standards) The Certified product failure rate is LESS than 1 part per million. Quality has always been JOB-ONE at CATZ."

Statistics pwned me--

 

Did any of you know that Catz & Bellof are one in the same.
If you look at the Cwest cars they all are Bellof and or catz.

My understanding for what you where talking about with the Bulb.
That can be from some tipe of oil geting on it. Like you tuching it......

The more out put the ballasts puts out the less the bulb will last.
The Hi K will not let the bulb last long.