Can someone shed some light on this?

I have aftermarket bulbs, (had them for 2 years) and the left harness keeps melting. I've changed it twice. Now I have to open the hood and wiggle the wires to get the light to work. I will buy a new harness, but eventually that will melt also. the right harness is still perfect. No signs of any damage. So what gives?

 

Are the bulbs your running use a higher wattage? If so then there is your problem right there. You would need to upgrade the harness and wiring to prevent future meltings.

SuDZ

 

yep... he is probably using 100/80 or more.... they will melt the harnesses. You've been lucky that you haven't had to replace the headlight stalk on your steering column.

Use stock wattage or buy/make an upgraded wiring harness using relays.

PIAA's Extreme Whites at the stock wattage are good from what I hear.

 

Guys, I can understand where you are going with this, BUT,
If its the harness that needs to be upgraded to a higher wattage, then Why is only ONE melting, and not both? It would have to be both.
Right?

 

what kind of bulbs are you using, it melted my wires on the Altima and i had to replace it.

 

Because of the setup of relays in the Max's headlight system. One headlight always gets more power than the other. They are run in series. If you were to slow down the turn on time of your lights on video, you'll see that one headlight turns on before the other. It won't be long before the other one goes too.

 

The wiring in many cars, the Maxima included, is such that the passenger side headlamp runs slightly hotter than the driver side. 100/80 watt light bulbs push the stock wiring right up to it's limit, and every once in a while one will get just a little too hot and melt a harness. More often than not, it will be the one on the passenger side. After that first melt, the problem will only get worse.

If you look at the contacts on the back of your bulb, you should notice some corrosion that appeared the first time it melted a harness. This corrosion causes a lot of resistance, making the contacts get hotter than they used to in less time, thus the harness that you plug it into will melt more readily than it would with a new bulb.

Additionally, the point where you join a replacement harness to the old wiring is a weak spot in the circuit, causing slightly more resistance and making the wires get a little warmer, which might also add to the problem.

If you insist on continuing to use high-wattage bulbs I highly recomend that you replace the one that has been melting your harnesses, and install an aftermarket wiring harness with heavy gauge wiring. Of course, installing standard wattage bulbs will solve the problem also.

 

i had the same problem for a while. i thought it was okay to run higher wattage bulbs on stock harnesses. at first i kept blowing the blub then finally my harness got fried. luckily my factory bulbs are okay to run. i just ordered an upgraded harness. i plan on runnning them with high output bulbs.

 

Get something like this and make sure you have good grounds.

http://suvlights.tripod.com//sitebui...ireharness.jpg