As some of you may know, it's about -15 degrees out here in Minnesota. Well this is the second time this has happened to me, and I'm getting worried. Let me describe the problem thoroughly:

- The first time it happened was at night (how convenient). I started my car, which had been sitting all day in 10 degree weather, and when I turned on the parking lights there was no problem. But when I turned on the headlights (low beam), they were very dim. I was confused, so I shut them off for a second. Turned them back on, guess what - still dim. So I call up my buddy while they're sitting there dim and ask him what it could be, and out of nowhere they just get back to their regular brightness and stay there, and the high beam light goes off. Weird ****, I say to myself. Doesn't happen again till tonight.

- Tonight, I go out to my car, which had been sitting for about 4 hours, start it up and put the headlights on - no problem, no high beam light, nothing. It's operating like it always has, perfectly. So I drive up to work 10 min. away, park it. Come back to the car, start it up - WTF, lights are dim, high beam light is on. The car is WARM this time! I don't know why it didn't do it when it was cold, but now it's doing it when it's warm. Anyways, so I hit the high beams and the weirdest thing happens - it goes from two dim low beams to one bright high beam light, with the other one off. Then I shut off my high beam and it goes back to dim. I drove home (10 min. away) and here I am.

What do you think is the issue? It's ONLY the headlights that are dim - not my parking lights, high beams, interior lights, cluster, NOTHING ELSE. I was looking through some old threads and someone said that if ONLY the headlights are dim then you have a bad ground. Is that true? I just want to get this resolved, as it is a serious safety issue for me.

 

If anyone has any ideas at all, it'd be very appreciated!

I'd like to figure this out tonight if possible

 

bump...help help help

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by boostincoupe &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> it goes from two dim low beams to one bright high beam light, with the other one off. </TD></TR></TABLE>

well that just sounds like you have a burnt out headlight... high beam is burnt.... and you say the high beam indicator light is on in the dash when your low beams are on but dim? i dont know if a ground would cause that problem.... the dim light maybe, but not the indicator to come on.

anybody else

 

bump

 

What you have heard seem possible from the wiring diagram...

If the headlight ground is bad the only path to ground the low beams will have is through the highbeam positive terminal to the highbeam indicator light...

Was the only highbeam that came on the left one?

If so it sounds like a bad headlight ground is your problem.

 

sorry for the double post but an easy way to figure it out would be to run a quick ground from the headlight bulb plug to a known good ground... if the highbeam indicator turns off and the headlight brightens that's your problem... if not then it sounds like a crossed power line after the combination switch... but that's not too likely unless you've done some under-dash wiring lately.