tbarrios

Hello All, I have a 2006 IS 250 with about 184,000 miles on it and am having a headlight issue and need some assistance in figuring out the issue.

The right side foglight will go off randomly, and has been doing so for some time now. I can get it to come back on by flipping the foglights off then back on. Tonight, the left headlight went out as well, and I was able to get it to come back on by flipping the headlights off and on a few times.

I looked up this issue and a Prius thread pointed to this wikipedia article that says this tends to happen when the lights get old: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-i...mp#End_of_life

from the other forum: "The behavior you describe is typical of a HID headlight that is failing. Turning the lights off and on will "fix" it, but in the long term can damage your ballast as well. You should change the bulb now before more damage occurs, and your problem should be solved. Make sure that the new bulb is from a reliable source, since there are a lot of reports of counterfeit HID bulbs out there."

But this is for HID lights. Are both the foglights and headlights HID? How can I check?


from the HID wiki: "Another phenomenon associated with HID lamp wear and aging is discoloration of the emitted light beam ("fading"). Commonly, a shift towards blue and/or violet can be observed."

This sounds like it correctly describes my headlights, the cars has a lot of miles and I just got it so it is possible that the headlights have never been replaced and are approaching their end of life. They do emit blue/violet light like the HID wiki describes. If I replace them how much should I pay for replacements? Any suggestions?

Thanks!

Gville350

iTrader: (10)

So is it your foglight or your headlight that randomly turns off? Do you have HID headlights? Do you have HID foglights?

tbarrios

The problem started with my passenger-side foglight randomly turning off. I'm not sure if the foglight is HID. But now my drive side lowbeam headlight is also randomly turning off. (not as often as the foglight but enough that I want to get the headlight fixed too). The headlights are HID for sure. I opened up the back of the headlight unit and saw the ballast for them.

Drizell

heh, and you wonder why ppl move out your way. Blinking them to deaF. (me yelling out the window, lady can you please stop Flashing me!)

whitebeast

iTrader: (5)

You won't see the ballast if you open up the back cover. All you could see is the bulb connector. As for fog light random turning off, i', really sure you got HID for fog as well cause halogen won't be intermittent like HID

tbarrios

There are two back covers on each unit. The one closest to the midline of the car has the parking bulb and high-beam bulb, no ballast there. But on my car if you open the cover closest to the side of the car a whole bunch of wires and a what looks like a slim white HID ballast with orange lettering pops out. I didn't unplug or pull anything completely out when I checked as the wires looked like they had to go in a certain way to all fit in there and they were sort of stuck in there. I can check again and post pics.