So this winter I diagnosed that I had a bad ballast in the car and that was the reason for my drivers side headlight not working.

Checked the relays, checked the fuse, changed the bulbs, swapped the headlight ballasts...etc...

Bought a new one and installed last weekend. Tada driver side headlight works. Drive it Saturday night for a few miles and it seems fine...

Drive the car to work today and on the way in, on road signs it seems like the headlights are flickering... Hmmm... maybe it's just the bumps... both headlights seem to be on...

Drive home notice the same thing a few times.... Pull into my garage and notice my drivers side headlight is out again...

Turn off the headlights and back on, it flicks on real dim then goes out, try again and it goes on and stays on... Shut them off again go get the mail and come back. Turn on again... Flickers like crazy then it goes out... Try again and the same result... Again, and again... It does seem to be really bright in comparison to the passenger side while flickering... You can hear a faint hum sometimes too...

I am at a loss right now, it has a new ballast, new bulb, even replaced the power lead to the ballast...

Could it be a bad bulb? I mean I did only bay 30bux for two on Ebay... I really don't want to risk losing a $150 ballast again...

Is there a ground that could be the issue that I should check?

Anyone else have any ideas?

 

When it comes to HID lighting, symptoms like that always tend to be the bulb. Best off spending a lil bit more and get quality bulbs. Bosch, Osram and PIAA all do replacement bulbs to OEM 4300k if thats what you are wanting or do you like them bluer?

 

The hum is a good sign also, means the ballast is trying to deliver a voltage to the bulb so its working

 

No I went with the 4300k bulbs, I would rather see more then be annoying to on coming traffic.

I bought the bulbs during debug to see if that was the cause, and it wasn;t then I ended up switching ballast and that seemed to address the problem, the drivers side worked, the passenger side didn't after the swap.

So i busted out the S2k electronic's manual... Unfortunatly it is for '00 through '04, car is an 05... If I follow the '04 wiring the head lights are grounded in the cab, checked that again and it is fine... The '00-'03 ground was just behind the headlight, well I have grounds there too... Looked pretty fugly so I pulled it off cleaned them up and the mounting surface and reconnected...

Headlight snapped to life, had a bit of a warm up with a cool blue hue then when the white temp like the passenger side... Tried it a few times on and off and I can't get it to flicker again...

Going to go out and try turning it on again in a bit and see if it does it...

Forgot to mention, it's raining today, but with all the weather pack connectors and the headlight unit being sealed (i replaced the Oring as part of the service) I wouldn't think that was it...

 

whoa's woes

 

Never said I was an English major

Anyways, tried the lights this morning and they were fine... Maybe the headlight ground is tied to just behind the headlight in the engine compartment and not in the cabin....

 

 

I thought mine was flickering one day and turns out a moth was inside my headlight! I don't know how the bastard got in either.