I have a 97 Nissan Maxima GLE that has a Dim Passenger Side Headlight. This one has me scratching my head. Here is what i've done thus far:

1. Moved the Driver side bulb to the passenger side and get the same result.
2. Replaced the socket on the passenger side and still get the same result.
3. Attached the ground wire from the socket to a known good body ground with the same result.
4. Ran a wire with a 15A fuse directly from the battery to the low beam wire on the headlight with the same result.
5. Ran the ground wire directly from the headlight socket to the negative battery terminal with the same result.

Could this be the headlight switch? The driver side works fine.

Thanks in advance!

 

I forgot to Add that the high beam on the passenger side is fine (Not Dim)

 

The ground at the headlight (the black wire) is connected to both the low and high beam filaments. This is done inside the bulb itself. So since the high beam works OK, the ground must be good. The other 2 wires on the socket bring 12 volts from the light switch to the bulb, one wire for the low beam and one wire for the high beam.

Based on what you have already done, it probably is the headlight switch. The only problem is that in your step 4, the low beam should have come on at full intensity. The only thing that I can think of is that maybe you were not on the wire for the low beam. The low beam us the green with yellow stripe wire.

Try this. Get your voltmeter and turn the headlights on. Check the voltage on the green with yellow stripe wire. It should be 12 volts. Compare it to the blue with black stripe wire on the passenger side. The 2 readings should be the same.

 

Thanks for your reply! I did think that was strange that the bulb was still dim even wiring it directly to the battery. I did check the voltage on both 12V wires (Low and high beams) and i was getting just over 12 volts on each wire. It just seemed like it would be the bulb but i get the same outcome with the other bulb. Potentially a bad battery? It still wouldn't make sense why one bulb is brighter than the other.

 

So... I feel like an idiot. I checked the driver side and found how the wires were connected. I followed the order they were wired on the previous connector and come to find out the previous owner had wired it wrong. He had the wires wired up below.

The high beam wire on the connector was wired to the ground on the car.
The low beam connector on the connector was correct.
The ground wire on the connector was wired to the high beam wire on the car.

Not sure how the heck it was still working but i switched everything around and it's working perfect now. Not dim at all! In hindsight i should had just checked how the driver side was wired and i wouldn't have had this problem lol

Thanks for the input!

 

Now that you have hindsight, what was happening was that in order for the low beam filament to get to ground, the electrical current had to go through both the low and high beam filaments. Double filaments was too much electrical resistance for the current to be able to light both filaments completely. You probably couldn't tell that both filaments were glowing.