I decided I didnt want a car payment so I sold my 2012 Kia Optima Turbo (Awesome car btw- loved it) and bought a 2004 I35 with 120k miles on it, in really good shape for $5k.

Driving home I noticed how dim and really unsafe the the head lights looked. Parked at my garage I can pretty much look into them without it bothering my eyes too much. Also, the high beams didnt seem to help much either.

Since the car has 120k miles on it, should I just replace the bulbs? Or is there something else like an adjustment I should look at?

Thanks for the help!

 

Well welcome to the forums first and 1 question? Are the headlight lenses foggy? Can you see the silver inside eh housing crystal clear? On my 02 i35 my lenses are perfect and cannot look into them without bothering my eyes, if no then you probably need to bulbs ballasts should be fine (then again I'm not expert on lights)

 

Are they HID or halogen?

 

Guessing HID sense it's an I35

 

Sorry, I'm not familiar with I30/I35s.

If they are the original D2R bulbs, if definitely replace them. After years (hours and hours) of use they put out less and less light.

 

Hi all! Thanks for the welcome! It is indeed HID Xenon lights. I have no clue if the bulbs have been replaced. I didnt get any service records with this car. Saturday I am going to replace the spark plugs (again no clue if they have ever been replaced), replace all air filters, and replace the battery. The car starts up no problem, but the battery looks pretty old and has a bunch of corrosion build up:



I am wondering if a less that powerful/good battery might have any effect on lights?

Also, here are some day time and night time pics of the lights. Not sure if these are helpful or not.

 

We'll we have good news and bad news. Good news is they are aftermarket lights as they are projectors but bad news is there "eBay" lights which means you probobly do need new bulbs but those look farilu bright but yes replace the battery and get back to us and we can help you from there unless someone else chimes in and says something

 

Those don't really seem all that dim, but then again it could be worn bulbs, or rather how the projectors disperse the light onto the road ahead instead of close-up onto a garage door, or how the light is spread as opposed to reflectors. Even the color looks good instead of being some stupid blue, since the color of HIDs affect how much they illuminate (white will illuminate better than blue or purple). Battery condition shouldn't really affect the brightness since the ballasts will produce the power required for the HIDs to light up properly.

 

Okay...so these are not stock? Hum. Are these bad lights? Are stock better?

 

Okay. Should I just clean up the battery or get a new one?

I will try to drive it at night again soon and find somewhere that I can take a pic of the lights. I think the issue is the disbursement of the light. Which could be a result of these being aftermarket.

 

Battery is really your call. If it looks really old beyond cleaning up the terminals and greasing them to prevent further corrosion or you want the peace of mind of a new battery, then get a new one. But if it seems decent, and the car starts right up and you don't get any low voltage warning, then you can keep using it but it does look pretty old and beat up. Getting your hands on OEM headlights unfortunately won't be cheap if you want to get them. Previous owner perhaps messed up the originals and went with these aftermarket ones due to them being so inexpensive. Maybe you can find an I35 in a junkyard and salvage headlights (you may want the OEM ballasts too) but they can run you $1500+ on eBay. I know my friend has HIDs in his Scion and they don't light up the road nearly as well as mine, but that can be attributed to different things. I know some people have noted that the output isn't all that good on those headlights. One member has also done a kickass retrofit with those headlights, but then you'll have to have the lights off the car, order new projectors (and halos if you want to upgrade them), open them up, and replace the components. I've never attempted it so I can't give any advice on difficulty level.

 

Yeah OEM are expensive. No thanks Cost for two new ones were 1/3 what I paid for the whole car

Are there better aftermarket ones? And are those HID. Can you tell from my pictures?

Lastly, does the above mentioned member have a write up or more info I can look at?

 

I'm pretty sure all the aftermarket ones are the same. Weird how the cutoff is like that when it really should be flat and not notched like that. You can try new bulbs too see if you get any difference still, just make sure of the size since I remember that the aftermarket ones are not the stock 9006 or D2R size. And if you do, get a color temperature somewhere from 4300k to 5000k. That will give you the brightest white. Here is the link to the guy who retrofitted better quality components into the aftermarket headlights:
http://forums.maxima.org/infiniti-i3...ngel-eyes.html

 

Those aren't OEM lights and they're unfortunately ebay projector headlights. That's the issue. Those projectors are crap but the bulbs look like they're seated wrong which is the reason for the lack of light. If they're cheap bulbs that's likely the issue (I have a feeling they are).

I still suggest new bulbs but because of the misalignment, not because they're old.

 

Okay I found the part number on the headlight and they are indeed the ebay specials.

If I am reading http://forums.maxima.org/infiniti-i3...ngel-eyes.html correctly, if I just want to replace the projector with betters ones like http://www.theretrofitsource.com/pro...roducts_id=101 it should just be a plug and play fit?

 

Retrofitting usually isn't a matter of plug and play. The difficulty may vary, but you are doing some degree of custom fabrication to fit in parts that were not considered in the design of the product. If you have the ability to take the headlights off the car for the duration that it takes you to complete the project, and you are confident in being able to do it, then you can give it a try. I'm not sure of the price of the parts needed for the retrofit, but you can get a new set of bulbs from DDM Tuning (I wouldn't buy eBay) for less than $50 if you wanna see if changing the bulbs helps your situation. It's kinda hard to tell from pictures exactly how bright things like lights really are.

 

Sorry I meant in terms of wiring. I know there will be some modification and and fabrication. I can probably do that. I am fairly handy.

I am having a hard time figuring out what size these current headlights take. I might try a new bulb first and if that doesn't work, look at the retrofit.

 

Wiring really just goes to the bulbs and I believe all HID bulbs are the same connectors, maybe just take a bulb out of your headlights and see if it says the bulb number (looked up and eBay listing for the lights and it says H7). Just be careful not to touch the HID gas chamber since you need the bulbs to last in the interim and any oils from your hands can heat up and cause the bulb to completely go out. I assume the previous owner kept the HID system (ballasts) but I'd make sure before you order bulbs to find out they ripped apart the wiring to put in halogens, although I don't see why anyone would every do that. Just since HIDs need the ballasts for the high voltages when halogens are 12V.

 

You can see the ignitor in front of the battery.It looks like a aftermarket ignitor though...

 

Yes they are aftermarket. Here are the headlights: http://www.headlightsdepot.com/produ...DS-DS608-B0WHW

Do these things usually not come with ballasts?

Low Beam: H7
High Beam: H1

Missed that the first time.

EDIT: Went out to the car and these are what I have: http://nssc-europe.com/xenon.html. 35 watt ballasts I really dont know much about HID and have no idea what is good or not. 35w seems low.

 

The I35 came with HIDs, and therefore the ballasts, but the aftermarket headlights normal would not so people who got them for an I30 could have halogens in them. As long as you have the ballasts, you know it's HID. 35W is typical for HIDs, with 55W being an option but it's not really what everyone has. The bulbs do not vary by wattage, the extra power just results in brighter light and more washed out color of the light. Just make sure to get that H7 size.

 

Thanks so much for your help!

I am going to order these:
in H7 and H1 and see what happens.

 

I'm not positive, but didn't the I35 have halogen high beams or is there another ballast for them? I always thought it was just HID lows

 

They did. But I thought with these new aftermarket headlights both were HID? Guess not. I would need two ballasts for that?

 

So after driving my wife's car tonight at dark I think I know what it is. The beam on her 4runner is solid and one straight nice line. The beam on my car is splotchy and feels all over the place. I have a feel thats the job of the projector. So that sucks. The highs are even worse with one beam shooting up towards the roof line of houses.

Here is a pic of my Kia Optima SX turbo (that just got sold inleiu of this new i35). You will see the kia on the right and the i35 on the right. Beam patterns are way different.

 

 

In terms of HID high beam, you would have to check if you have four ballasts in total under the hood, one for each bulb. And for the output, that's why other members have retrofitted better projectors into their headlights; for a much better cutoff and projection/spread of light. I think my friend said the headlights he put in his brother's Volkwagen were the same way and they ended up going back to the stock reflector housings.

 

There we go! That is nice! If I am going to retrofit at some point, I guess I shouldnt open the new bulbs I was sent then.

 

Yep just 2 ballasts. So the highs are halogen. I think I will just replace the bulbs and see if I can aim them better.

 

Today my new HID lights came in. In the process of digging around by the headlights, I found out that I do indeed have high and low HID lights. I found another, smaller sized ballast made by Volt Digital. This is the model: http://www.kbcarstuff.com/Volt-HID-D...-p/vdp-hid.htm

I decided to install one of the new H7 HID bulbs and compare it to the old one. Wow. What a difference. Still a little weird on the disbursement of the light, but much, much brighter. Here is a pic. On the left is the new bulb. Right is old bulb.



I am going to install the other side and take a drive and see how it goes. I will probably keep them as is for now.

 

That does look a lot better. Guess pictures never really give the best view at night. Or even how deteriorated those old bulbs must have been.

 

how do you know they are cheap ebay ones?

 

Now bring the beams down some.

 

Now how do I do that? I think that is my issue right now. They are pointed to far up.

 

As long as the aftermarket headlights don't change the aiming mechanism, theres a small white piece (****) right behind each headlight with a hex-head towards the back. you can turn it by hand to adjust the headlights up and down.

 

Cool thanks! I have them pointed a lot further down. I noticed a similar nut further down the lights. What does this do?

And on a side note, I was dissapointed with the light on the passenger side when driving home tonight in the dark. When I went to correct the beams, I noticed the passenger side only had the angel eyes lighting up! he low beam wasnt working. I took the bulb out and found the ground wire to the bulb was not connected inside the rubber grommet. So back it goes!