I just noticed my headlights do a very strange thing tonight. I got into my car started it up and turned on the headlights. But when I did I noticed they were very dim for a good 2 seconds then jolt up to standard low beam brightness. Turned them on and off quite a few times and they do it every time.

Anyone know what is causing this?

 

Do you have Hids ?. My DX and GS-R both do that right at first, It's just part of the cars start up(stock bulbs). just like if you have the E-brake up(engauged) the lights won't even come on at all. nothing to worry about when i had HIDS on my civic it took a few seconds to get to full bright ness.

 

It just started tonight, never did it before.

 

You didn't answer my question i had for you. Do you have HIDs on the car or stock/OE style bulbs. could also be the bulbs starting to go.

 

They are stock, no hid kit

 

best i can think of is it's always happend you just noticed today or in fact the bulbs are starting to go. if you want you could always go out and grab some new ones for 20.00 or so

 

alternator on the way out....

 

If its both bulbs that are doing the same thing ( dimming ) then its more than likely not your bulbs.

With your car running and headlights on, rev it up to say 1500 rpm or even 2 k , if they brighten back up. Its more than likely your Alt. not holding a full charge.

You can take a amp. meter and put it on your battery while its running and as long as you have good connection. You can see if the alt. is holding a charge. If it reads 13.2 or higher, its good.

Also check your battery terminal connections. Try and turn them back and forth like your trying to pull it off.

 

They don't dim with the high beams or while driving. Just right when I turn them on they are really dim then go to standard brightness after a few seconds

 

See if you can get your battery tested. I just recently had an issue where my car was a no start, no crank… battery read 12.6v but putting load on it and it went down to 3v

Even with out testing it, you can pop the cell covers and see if there is a proper amount of water in each cell…*if even 1 cell is empty…*bad battery. Easy check. How old is your battery?

Beyond the battery… as mentioned before, bad lights? Single halogen lights can have the "low beam" go out but the "high beam" works just fine.

Also as mentioned before, could even be the alternator is not doing it's job