HID problems...

[mattylight]

so on my way to work this morning i realized that my pass side HID is not working. I have a MY 00 s2k. what should i be looking for to diagnose this problem. does a "burned out" HID bulb look different? how do i tell if indeed just the bulb is broken and not also the inverter? also where is the cheapest place to get these items? majestic has bulbs for 130 and inverters for 260. any other info that anyone could give would be great! thanks in advance!
matt

[mattylight]

anyone?

[Looter]

:rolleyes: Matt....I can't help you out with your problem....You may want to "PM" repiv...............!!!!

[velocity]

Only thing I could think of is putting the working bulb on that side to see if its just the bulb not the ballast. If that won't work then its the ballast. If it does and is just the bulb I'd just order off ebay, not generic ones but some Philips or Osram ones.

[repiv]

The service manual states that to diagnose an HID problem, you have to switch components from side to side. Unfortunately, this will ultimately involve removing the bumper for the easiest access.
Take the known good bulb and put it in the burnt out side. If it lights, it was the bulb. You can usually confirm this by putting in the bulb from the burnt out side into the known "good" side. It won't light there, either.
If the "good" bulb doesn't light, it "could" be the ballast (inverter). To confirm this, move the ballast from the "good" side to the burnt out side. Try it with both the "bad" bulb and the good bulb. By this point, you should know what part you need to buy. If you are still uncertain, then it's possible you have a bad ground somewhere and tracking this down may be difficult.

[desmo4]

Also when you do the above follow the instructions about time and handling the bulbs. HiD's have lethal voltages present so you must disconnect the battery and wait. It's also a good idea to ground the components before disconnecting anything. To make a grounding rod, get a piece wooden dowel 3/8" should do, about 2 feet long. Put a screw in the end and attach a wire from the negative battery terminal to it, sufficiently long enough to reach the components. Wear rubber gloves and clean them with alcohol before touching the bulb, to avoid any contamination.

Jonathan

[TXGator]

I recently had the same issue where the passenger side HID would occasionally fail to come on; this required replacing the igniter for the headlight, which fortunately was covered under warranty.

[mattylight]

so this is strange, i got of work last night and the light was working. which sounds like what TX gator is talking about...so the failure wasn't in the bulb, but in the ballast?? should i continue use until the problem grows, or replace things now? oh and i appreciate the help thus far...always good common sense from you dave!

[Wanderer]

To replace parts now or wait till it gets worse is up to you. It kinda depends on how much night driving you do.

I do a lot of driving at night, so if it was my car, I would go ahead and follow the troubleshooting tips as described above and isolate/replace the offending part. Yes, even though the light started to work for you, I would still swap bulbs to confirm the fault.

[AssassinJN]

If the light came back on at the bad side, swapping will not give much of an answer as to what is wrong as it may also light on the good side. You could of course switch bulbs and leave it that way for a couple days if you do not drive too much at night, that way you can see if it is the same side that goes out again, or if it's the same bulb now on the other side.

[repiv]

If the light came back on at the bad side, swapping will not give much of an answer as to what is wrong as it may also light on the good side.
So true. It might just be a frustrating excercise. You should wait till it craps out again. An HID that comes and goes can be a bad ground, a ballast on its way out or even a weird bulb. That's too many variables to try to narrow down unless it's not working at all.

[S2WOOOW]

I had one side fail to light once. That was years ago. It never repeated to light after that.

[MacGyver]

I've seen this happen with other's cars from timeto time, but it happened so infrequently (once or twice per car in its lifetime?) that it wasn't worth chasing down. A simple on/off cycle of the lights fixed it...

[boiler]

so this is strange, i got of work last night and the light was working. which sounds like what TX gator is talking about...so the failure wasn't in the bulb, but in the ballast?? should i continue use until the problem grows, or replace things now? oh and i appreciate the help thus far...always good common sense from you dave!

I had a bad bulb that did the same thing several times before it finally went out all together. Once I removed the bulb you could see the bad one because it was black and melted in the center of the bulb. My ballast was OK, just the bulb was bad. I did a search for the bulb on the internet and found a replacement for $89.