OK so hopefully someone can help me out.

My driver side headlight went out. Took it to a guy to swap out the bulbs and it turns out the issue was the ballast (which made sense because some of the dash lights were coming on), so managed to buy a remanufactured ballast for about $120 online and had mechanic dude put that in. It worked for about a week and now it looks like the bulb went out and also the wiring harness to the bulb was melted. I'm not sure what would have caused the circuit to overload like that - would a bad ballast do that?

Anyway, so now I guess I need to either get a new ballast and harness and replace the bulbs or come up with something else, like replacing the whole system with an aftermarket LED set up.

Anyone had these issues or have some suggestions, because this whole headlight thing is turning into a big cluster at this point.

 

An eBay remanufactured ballast could easily have caused your problem. If the ballast was putting out to much amperage/current, then it could have overheated the wiring and the bulb. Just replace with an OE bulb, absolutely do not change the brand. Aftermarket bulbs if not namufactured to within 0.5mm of proper orientation in the housing will radically alter beam pattern. And the s2000 housings are the most sought after one's in the world because of our almost perfect beam pattern.

 

If you're going to change one bulb change both, been there tried that, you can get a pair of Phillips 6k bulbs for about $80.

 

You can buy Phillips/GE/OSRAM 4300k bulbs for around that price and keep the better light output also.

I'm also pretty sure you can buy a new OEM ballast for around $120.

 

Try $340'ish. Maybe used, but not new.

http://www.hondapartsnow.com/genuine...9-S2A-013.html

 

The issue is the bulb probably wasn't screwed in fully into the "ignitor" so it melted.