I diagnosed why one of my HID bulbs wouldn't light. It's the ballast. I have the Panasonic "Vision" H4 kit that I got from Hogan. It's been installed for 16 months. The ballast is for 35W HID bulbs.

 

From the store.........

 

 

Another PAnasonic HID goes bad, huh? Mine blew out in under 1 year and I'm totally upset.

GC

 

I'm VERY glad that I got the Hanabi Kit from Freddie. Had mismatched bulbs initially that he immediately took care of. Now, 9 months out, the starter (red box) on one side blew and I was able to buy a new starter from him. The aftermarket support is phenom! Hats off to you Freddie!

 

I can't imagine why you would be happy that you replaced a component about a year after you bought it, that should last the life of the car. I've said it from the beginning before I even got my Maxima, and had a Volvo 850 Turbo. If you want to upgrade to HID's go with a reputable company that specializes in lighting, i.e. Philips, Sylvania, etc.

HID upgrades should not require any replacement components for MANY years, most likely, longer than you will own the car.

 

Jeff did buy a "quality" kit and is now having problems. He had the kit almost 2 years so it was probably time for something to go.

I have the Hanabi kit and didn't have one problem with it so I'd say the Hanabi kit IS quality.

Mishmosh said he was happy because of the good customer service he got from Freddie as well as I. The only problem with the Hanabi's is that they don't come with the shield to reduce glare and that's all It kills me how some of you guys dog on the Hanabi kit and really don't know the facts about it.

 

I have been installing HID kits on friend and family cars for about 4 years now. My kit on my old Volvo 850 Turbo is 3 years old. Some of the kits I have installed are run like DRL's, and are some are over 4 years old now.

How is it that "He had the kit almost 2 years so it was probably time for something to go"? Like I said before good quality HID kits should last much longer than 2 years.

If you think HID ballast only needs to last 2 years to be considered of high quality, that's fine with me.

 

Installing kits and building them are 2 different cases. I'm just saying that all the comments about the Hanabi's not being quality are rediculous. I say a GS430 last night with on HID out and that was the stock HID (who knows what company makes them).

I guess it was Jeff's luck of the draw.

Sure they do but it doesn't mean that there aren't exceptions.

What I'm saying is even a good kit will have problems too.

 

I got a price of $199.95 from itsrealstuff.com for just a ballast.
They sell whole kits for $399.

I opened the covers on the ballast and looked around for bad solder connections. There were a couple that looked bad, so I got the soldering iron out. It's very nice that I work with an electrical engineer. He used a digital multimeter to test a bunch of components.

I haven't checked to see if the ballast works yet. I'll run out to the parking lot sometime today.