As some of you know I just installed the Phillips HIDs the other day and today, when I got home, I turned on the lights for a sec and only one light came on! I turned the lights off then on again and both lights came on, like normal. I checked all the connections and nothing looks out of place. I tried the on-off a couple more times and the lights are fine now with both turning on each time. It was just really weird when that one light didn't turn on that first time. Has anyone else experienced this?

 

bah that happened to me too. i mounted my ballasts off so everytime i hit a bump the damn headlight kept flickering on and off. my driver side bulb is going to have a short life expectancy...

 

Usually just the connection from the factory harness to the ballast. Make sure it is a good connection.

 

check your relay on HID kit...could be corroded.

-Alan

 

its the connection, I have taken mine apart (harness) and recrimped

 

How do I check the relay?

Is the harness the black cord that goes into bulb socket? or is that the cord connected to the HID charger/bulb???

How do I make sure its a good connection, it seems to work now.

Thanks.

 

I wish I could have some advice to contribute. I wonder when visualdynamics is going to get their 2nd shipment in for that group buy...

 

i think he said rest of kits ship out monday. Check best buy forum, he replied.

 

check your bulbs contact with the headlight housing. I know exactly whats going on. The HID bulb will short on the headlight housing socket. (IE: metal of bulb grounding out to the metal of the headlight housing). Anyhow, check that. If this keeps on happening it will fry the ballest. Also make sure the wiring to the ballest to the factory harness is correct and also make sure you have the correct fusing.

 

You talked about some other problem in your HID post that makes me think you didn't change out your fuses...

Did you change your fuses to 20's?

 

I just sent an email to trevor about this problem with my HID. same problem as yours. Installed it Friday nite, working nicely for 48 hours, suddenly one side didn't work. After some testing, maybe i messed up one bulb. the brown tube along the glass bulb crack, now giving up yellowish color. I thought it's just me who has this problem. It just happened to me tonite. To make thing even worse, my silver vision bulb is stuck into the bulb base, but it's my own fault, no problem with the bulb itself. All happened in the last 4 hours. a very bad nitemare i have tonite. x10 . forunately, things that little money can solve is not a big problem.

 

I took out the bulb, and put it back in very carefully w/o hitting the headlight casing. I turned it on and off a few times and its working fine now. All the connections are correct too.

I changed the fuses to 20amps fuses when I installed the kit. In the previous posts I was concerned about the buzzing noise from the ballast and that right side headlight is higher than the left. But I found out these are normal.





[Modified by STC, 9:48 PM 7/21/2002]

 

I emailed him as well. How can this be a thing that lil money can fix??? Are you going to have someone fix it for you??

 

actually i think i've found the defective component. I just did a testing on all the 6 components received from Trevor, except the tapes of course
the difference between you and me is i couldn't get both sides light up, the hid did go on and off and on, but now, i couldn't get both sides light up again. so something must be having problem here, the testing was:
1) i swapped the bulbs only, one side lighted up
2) then swapped the ballast only, the same side lighted up
3) then i swapped the connection wire(wire from ballast to car's socket), the other side lighted up
4) and then just to confirm it again, i put the suspect wire back to the other side, and it didnt' light up again, and the other side did light up
since both sides did light up one at a time, the probability of my car's problem can be elimiated.

i've just emailed Trevor again to tell him my testing result. waiting for his reply.

What i meant was, if there is a problem that money can't solve, then the problem must be ....... you know
the tradeoff of doing all these testing is, i probably have touched the bulbs. so i will have to clean them by alcohol or something!

the yellowish color i've mentioned before in the last post was just part of the warm up phase i guess.

 

The exact same thing happened to me for the first week or two after I put mine on as well. The passanger light didn't turn on, but when I turned it off and on again, both were on. I didn't do anything to it, and I haven't had a problem with it since, and that was about 3 or 4 months ago.

 

Ok, lets hope thats the case w/ mine too. Thanks.

 

Nice detective skills.........well seems like all you need to do is get another another connection wire.

 

My situation was the same... sometimes both would turn off

What I did (thanks to Yoshi234) was turn the lights on, when one of them is off, wiggle the wire so that it stayed on. Don't vigorously wiggle it but just move it till the HID comes back on. then try to keep the wire in that position. I haven't had a problem since (*knocks on particle board*).

-aoib0t, who finally posts something that may mean something to someone *whrugs*

 

just trust me on this. Its the HID bulb which is causing all this. Its a common problem with BMW guys who put HID in Euro headlights.
What happenes is when the bulbs first ignite the power currect is so strong that it can arch onto the metal on the headlight housing and short out. So what you have to do it position the bulb exactly perfect to make it not do this. The whole playing with the wires works because by moving the wires you shift the bulbs slightly which might fix it. A trick I know that also works is putting some liquid electrical tape on the headlight housing metal to help stop the shorting.
The only other cause for this is if the ballest is defective (which is highly unlikely if the ballest it Phillips or Hella), the bulb is defective (which again is highly unlikely if it appears in good condition), the wiring is incorrect (which is unlikely if you have the snap on connects for the headlight harness to ballest), or if the bulb is shorting out on the headlight housing (which is likely).

 

Thats a good idea w/ the electrical tape. I'll keep an eye on it. Thanks Rboosted717!!!

 

the problem (if you want to call it that) with Trevor's kit is not the bulb shorting out... but the harnesses. The problem is solved if you wrap electrical tape where the socket part connects to the wires. Basically, the wires are securely connected to the sockets and no more flickering.

 

after reading these, i still think the wiring harness in the problem area, i switched that suspect wiring harness back and forth, always give a bad connection. i will try to wrap the connection with electrical tape to see if it works. Thanks for the advice