lexusfan05

The moisture causes ballast damage, it's a known issue. The ballast sits at the lowest point of the assembly and and water going inside will accumulate there. The OEM ballast is not waterproof and goes out quickly when wet.

I have a 2005 rx330 and I have converted from halogen to HID. My experience taught me that:

- Aftermarket HID kits are painful. They perform badly with voltage drop. If you have automatic headlight, the light turns on before crank and then the passenger side goes out while cranking, due to voltage drop. You have to get a relay and a direct connection from battery. Not worth it.

- Aftermarket casings are cheap, literally. The lens causes poor beam pattern. Not worth it.

- Used OEM assemblies from 2004 to 2006 are known to have moisture issue. It's fixable, there is a nice DIY on how to do it. 2007 and up 2nd generation RX350 headlights supposedly fit RX330 as well and they are not prone to seal failure that cause moisture issue. If you can find any of those, that's your safest bet.

If you want to save money, just replace the ballast and fix the moisture issue. It will cost you about $100 and couple of hours.

ozmanyyy

Thanks for all the responses so far.

So today, I went to a different Lexus Dealer. A co worker reminded me that there was one, just a couple of miles from where I work. I figured I'd go in and tell them what the other dealer said and see if they agreed. I told them dealer one basically gave me 2 options, $2100 for a full headlight assembly or about $300 ( including the diagnostic charge ) to swap the bulb.

These guys were actually a little more responsive. The guy I was speaking to said he was the body shop manager. He agreed that if there is a lot of water coming in, then a full swap makes sense because, as you guys have mentioned, water would continue to damage a new ballast.

But he said to bring it in. He said if the seal/leak isn't too bad, they'd just reseal it for me and replace the ballast and said it was roughly 6-$700.

He also, said that If I did need to replace the whole headlight, I didn't have to buy the AFS replacement. He said it would be about $1000 less, but there would be a dash light that comes on. ( I have to search to see if the dash light can be turned off, anyone know ? ).

He said to just stop and he'll take a look to check it out, so I definitely will.

I was happy that these guys are at least willing to discuss some other options that are relatively much more reasonable.

Thanks
Oz

mowmow

ozmanyyy, I've also found new OE headlight housing including AFS for about $300 each on ebay. TRS 55watt kit
is about $120ish.

More info for you, after I got my retrofit done, I had to replace the bulbs, I bought the Philips D2S bulbs from Amazon for about $40 and took it into dealership to get them swap out both for $50 so now you have a reference
on what reasonable Lexus dealership charges.