I recently bought a 2000 I30t equipped with HID headlights and I am starting to notice a problem. Sometimes the right (passenger side) light goes out and there is just a dim yellow looking light seen. If I turn the headlights off and back on immediately the light turns back on as well. It does this off and on but normally once it's on it stays on until I stop the car somewhere. When I turn it back on they may or may not both be on. I don't know what could be causing this. Any help would be appreciated.

 

2 things could be causing that. if you are using the stock headlight harness you have to change your fuses to 15amp'rs cause they draw alot of power during start up. Mine flickered in my e36 lights randomly until i gave in and made an upgraded headlight hareness. now they work perfect. and it also helps protect against electrical fires! hope this helps

 

That shouldn't be his problem. He has OEM HID - the harness and electrical system were already designed for the draw whereas yours was not.


Davis -

I'm thinking you either have a bad ballast or a bulb that's going bad. The dim yellow light you're seeing is probably the city-light bulb that's also in the low-beam reflector that lights up whenever the parking lamps are on (you just don't normally see it because the HID bulb over-powers it).

Couple ways to check this:

-Take the good bulb from the other headlight and swap it out with the one mis-behaving and see if that cures the problem. If so, then you have a bad bulb.

-To check the ballast, just do the reverse - move the bulb that's failing to light over to the headlight that doesn't have any problem. If the problem goes away, then you have a bad ballast on that other headlight.

 

i stand corrected:-p

 

how exactly do I go about getting the light out?

 

Tow bolts on top, remove fog light from bottom, one 10mm hidden bolt inside. You'll see that once you are looking up from underneath the car.

 

remove fog light? Maybe there was a misunderstanding?? I'm trying to remove the headlight. Also, does anyone know what the best HID bulb is to buy and where can I get them if necessary.

 

Just get a Philips D2R. Can even buy used ones on eBay for cheap.

And I think n3985 was suggesting that you remove the foglight so that it would be easier to access the bolt on the bottom of the headlight.

 

the bulbs just dont pop out? You have get the fogs out to get to them easier?

cars these days

 

If you have tiny hands/fingers and a right-angled screw driver, you can *maybe* change the bulb with the headlight in the car. But in the end it'd still probably be easier to just pull the entire headlight.

 

newbie don't have 15 posts? You have to post randomly to get there?

newbie these days

I'm just kidding, but your post was just s random.

 

Well I changed the bulbs up a bit to do some testing and the problem stopped for a while but last night I was driving home at night and when I went to turn, as soon as the turn signal clicked off so did the headlights! WHILE DRIVING. So I switched them off and back on and they came right back on. It has done this about 2 or 3 times but it has no pattern or anything. It just does it every now and then. Could this be some kind of electrical problem? Some kind of short in the wiring?

 

That's just weird.

I really have no idea. Just go over all the wiring you can see and feel and make sure all the connections are firm, nice, and tight.

 

Well whatever you do if it gets any worse put it higher up on your priority list, as most people will tell you switching your HIDs off and on immediately is not good.

 

How long should one wait before turning it on again?

 

No set time, but hot re-strikes aren't good. AKA, "flashing," and the reason why HID is never used in high-beam applications (short of bi-xenons, but those are mechanical), because of "flash to pass."

 

I've got this same problem with my '00 I30T. I've also noticed it on a buddy of mine's I30 without HID. Something in the turn signal circuit causes the headlights to flash sometimes when the turn signal stalk is auto-mechanically returned to the neutral position. Myself and the previous owner had the dealer look into the problem and the only thing they could come up with was to replace one of the bulbs.
On my friend's I30, you can see the same flash if you're really paying attention. Even with HID, the flash is very quick, you wouldn't notice it if one of the bulbs didn't reignite. My buddy never noticed the issue until I looked started paying attention to the headlights when turning.

I would guess that the problem lies in the turn signal switch. The dealer quoted me I think about $100 for the part.

I haven't changed the switch since I usually only loose one bulb and of course the problem is almost impossible to reproduce on demand!

I'd love to hear if anyone has difinitively solved this problem.

 

1. most times the ballast isnt getting a good ground if the excessive yellowing happens during the ignition of the salt.
1.5. Also you should run a 20AMP fuse (atleast thats what i found to fix prob plus its been workin ggreat for 3 years)
2. ensure the ballst adapter is plugged fully into the base of the bulb.
3. when the light goes out during turn signal activation, this is problem with the switch itself (on steering wheel). the contacts sometimes go bad and just need to be replaced. ( i had this poblem running the OEM HID and i replaced the switch with one from teh JDM almera GTI which had the reverse fog light switch built into the stick. it has front fog. then another turn of the fog switch turns on the rear fog light)

you can try to repair contacts if your good with soldering.. but dont count on it... JUNKYARD IS YOUR FRIEND. look for switches that werent abused much (stil have markings clear and visible) some people tend to leave the auto setting on the headlight which is great if you are getting a used one that isnt abused

The turning problem is something that should be addressed soon. your ballast may get damaged along wiht the bulb form the constant reignition...

 

I wonder if this is what is happening with my HIDs. I have had 6000K bulbs for about 3 years now. They were always a pure white with a slight greensih/blue. Now after warm up, they seem to maintain a more yellowish color. I swapped ballast and its still the same. Could this be a grounding issue?

 

try connecting it directly to battery terminal and see whats happens .. its the simplest way to check.. Also with age(in terms of hours of operation) the bulbs tend to loose color and become more yellower/whiter...

it is happening to one of my phillips d2r bulbs.. you will notice it on the 2000 acuras and the some maximas.

 

I've got very similiar porblem with my 04 Maxima equipped with factory HIDs. [FONT='Calibri','sans-serif']Intermittently my passenger side HID headlight will flicker then go out. By turning them off and back on comes back. Any ideas? If it's the ballast or bulb? [/FONT]

 

Easy way to tell is to start swapping bulbs and ballasts around to isolate the problem.

 

The problem is that it happens intermittedly and it's quite a bit of work to get to the lights/ballast on an 04 Maxima. (have take bumper off) I only wanted to do it once but I guess I gotta do it.

 

about the headlights dimming when the turn signal turns on or when it turns off happens either if you have HID's or not bcus i dont have HID's on my 2k but it still dus that flicker or whatever and what i always thaught was that all the power thats going to the headlight decrease a lil because its going to another bulb and not a electricle problam.my headlights dont turn off tho.i dont know if this helps but i hope.

 

thats really wierd you mention that.. my 2000 maxima used to do the same thing! the lights would flick off and back on real quick when the turn signal stalk clicked back into its home position.. No clue what caused it but im sure its something a new stalk could fix..