I have read a number of different posts about malfunctioning high beams in S2000's, however, I have not seen anything mentioned about my specific problem. My high beams do not work at all in either stalk position and furthermore, I get no blue indicator on the dash when trying to turn them on. Low beams work fine. Any idea as to what the specific problem is in this scenario?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

 

get to checking all the fuses.

 

Done any work on the high beams? Have they ever worked during your ownership?

If the fuses are good: Page 178 of the 2005 Owner's manual shows two "light relays" in the primary fuse box under the hood next to the battery. They're identical relays (in my 2006, just checked the part numbers) as is the horn relay in position 3 (and I suspect 12, 13, and 14) so try swapping 1 and 2 with 3 and see if the high beans work. Bad relays are rare but...

-- Chuck

 

When you say "relay" are you referring to a "fuse"?

 

Nevermind, I see that actual relays you are referring to and will check them out right away! Thanks!

 

Chances of both headlight bulbs failing can't be ignored. Never seen them fail at the same time but one could have been out for a long time and you never noticed.

-- Chuck

 

I bought new bulbs just in case, but will check the relays today. Being that I just bought the vehicle, I have no idea if the previous owner even knew about the issue as they rarely drove the vehicle and he recently passed away as well. The wife knew very little about the car so I cam kind of on my own figuring this stuff out.

 

Not sure if this applies to you, but its good knowledge, for sure. From Modifry's website:My own ramblings on the S2000 headlights.

Funny Fuses

If you blow a fuse on one of the low beams (or just remove it), the light will not go out like you would expect, but instead flickers like a wimpy strobe light. You'd think if the fuse is blown, the light would get no power at all. Not.

On top of that, both high beams will come on, even when they're switched off, but only at partial brightness. It will make you say "Hmmmmm" and maybe "holy crap" if you don't know what's going on. So what is going on?

Honda had a better idea, so they have the lights wired so the low beam relays provide positive voltage to both the low and high beams. Then they wired the high beam switch to supply the ground to the high beams. Why? To confuse us of course. And it makes for a cool light show if a fuse blows.

The result is that when an open circuit occurs (like a blown fuse) in the +12v side of the low beam circuit, current from the other low beam relay feeds back through both high beam elements to the low beam with the blown fuse. So all 3 lights are in series with the 12 volt power supply, and only get partial voltage. This makes the high beams light up dim, and the low beam flicker as it tries to start up on inadequate voltage. Cool.

 

I swapped out the relays on nothing changed. If it is actually two burned out high beam bulbs, wouldn't the dash indicator still light up even if the bulbs are burned out? I have a bad feeling that if I swap out the bulbs, I will still be without high beams. Thoughts?

I also saw a thread (that I no longer can find) about the solder points on a lighting module. Could that be the issue?

 

Easy to test the existing high beam bulbs without removing them if you can rig a 12v source so that would be my next step. Hopefully they're dead. Don't forget to wipe the bulbs with alcohol to clean them before connecting them to 12v.

Some midday reading in the Wiring Manual (p. 110) indicates there's a "high beam cut relay" that controls them and the dash indicator. There's details on "How the Circuit Works (USA)" on page 110-3 that may help.

-- Chuck