I have a problem that has been bothering me for the past year now. My 2002 Honda Accord SE seems to lose a lo-beam headlight once in a while. What I mean by that is every once in a while, I notice at night that either the left or the right headlight is out. I then open up the hood and unhook the connector and reattach to get it working again.

Any suggestions on how to remedy this?

 

Clean your leads, check the fuses. The headlights go into a control module with a bunch of other stuff so there's a possibility that module may be bad; there's also a possibility the wiring is bad as well.

 

I've had a similar problem occur a couple of times in a short period on my 2006 Accord: right headlight would not work. Thinking it was the bulb I planned to replace it the next day but to my surprise the light worked fine then: problem solved. It's now been almost a year that the light has been working flawlessly.

If the problem occurs again, gently push the connectors to slightly move the bulb. Also you can measure voltage on the connector vs. negative on battery to verify if wiring and fuse are ok.
Maybe an intermittent earth fault? You could switch bulbs left to right and vice versa while checking for corrosion in the bulb fittings.

 

Thanks for the tips, guys. I unplugged the bulbs and used some contact cleaner on the connections, then added some dielectric grease for good measure, then connected them back up.

After cleaning, today's issue was the driver's side low-beam (the lows are the problem) and it seemed that whenever I would unscrew the bulb from the headlight chassis, the light would come back on. I'd then put it back in again, and sometimes it would go out again. A little plugging, unplugging and reinserting would get it working again. Later in the day, it went out again, and I had to reconnect it to make it work. And tonight it was out again when I started driving, then turned on by itself. Baffling. No signs of corrosion on the connectors, but I cleaned them anyway. I can check the multimeter on the wire tomorrow, but I suspect I won't notice any issue, since the problem is intermittent. I doubt it's the fuse as that would affect both lights.

I'm not sure how the wiring work for the lights, so I'm not sure what to check next. Any thoughts?

 

There are ground wires which the headlights and other harness connectors are attached to. The left headlight and right headlights are on separate grounds though. You might check the grounds.

I don't know if I can find the ground locations for your year car though. If I find them, I try to post them.

 

Grounds would be my next guess, or loose wiring in the connector itself. I would crack open the plug (flat head screwdriver or knife will work) and inspect the connections. You may find a bare wire there or something.

 

To check if it is the wiring/fuse/connector or earth fault. First make sure you can measure on a working headlight: insert your meter's positive probe into the wire side of the connector (red? wire), negative probe on the battery negative. With a working headlight this will give you battery voltage. Do the same measurement later when the headlight fails: if you still have battery voltage then controller, fuse, wiring and connector are ok.

 

I'll give it a shot this morning. Since I removed and reinserted the fuses, the lights have been fine, though. I'll keep an eye on it.