I purchased my silver/black 67k mile 06 SC about a month ago. Really love and appreciate this car, by the way. What a refined, well built machine. I feel like a spoiled brat driving a $100k car, when in reality I paid 1/5 of that.

Ok, to my question. My left low beam is sporadic. It always comes on when I first turn them on, then it just shuts off-sometimes. Most of the time, I can flip them off, then back on, and it lights up again. That is, until last night when I was pulled over for it. "Oh, yes Sir. I noticed it started doing that. Watch this!" And I flipped them off and on while he was up front to see the show. Nothing. Then, after getting the warning and firing it back up to leave...boom! On again. Sigh...at least it was a warning, which surprises me because I had the ol Valentine1 right in his face with the top being down.

Secondly, my horn works every once in a while, but typically not. It worked for inspection, though. So at least I'm good for a year.

Any thoughts on these two gremlins?

 

Both situations are easy to diagnose. Fixing them is a different story. The headlight is likely just a bad bulb. Change both. PITA to do on these cars. The horn situation is most likely the clock spring cable in the steering wheel. I have an 06 and have had both situations you describe and fixed both with the fixes I describe. I did an entire write up in this forum some years ago about the clock spring replacement.

 

Thank you! I had thought that an actual bulb would either work or not. I didn't realize it could be sporadic. I will get on it.

And I'll do a search for your clock spring replacement.

 

Iolmaster is correct. Bad bulbs and clock spring cable. Do a search on those two subjects.

 

HID bulbs can be intermittent. They depend on an arc being created between the anode and cathode. Sometimes it works sometimes not.

 

And even though we love LED's, they are susceptible to this kind of failure. Had them on my LS400 and finally threw them away and replaced them with original equipment. LED bulbs typically have a fan to help them keep cool. If it fails, you won't know but when it gets too hot, it shuts off until it cools down. And like it has already been said, if you change one, change both. Or even all of them because it is such a pain to replace,you won't want to have to do it again. LOL. Just a thought.

Paul

 

actually you have three gremlims. I if you were givig him a hard time, as your post seems to idicate, you eed to cure that gremlin first. Dont tug on suppermans cape,its not a good idea. i am suprised he let you off. i would not have

 

What in the HECK are you talking about?!?!?! Been drinking a little of grandpa's cough syrup this morning? Hahaha!

 

thej what does this mean? "Sigh...at least it was a warning, which surprises me because I had the ol Valentine1 right in his face with the top being down."

 

Oh! That's a radar detector. I was nice as pie, as I always am to our officers. They have a rough job, and it does nobody any good to not be nice. I'm even nice AFTER a ticket is written.

My point in saying that was, he was nice in not giving me a ticket even though I had a device that's used against him. Make sense?

 

YEAH makes sennse now..

 

Thanks for clarifying. I have to admit, I had no idea what you were talking about either.

And I second what you say about our officers!

 

Headlight bulbs replaced! Thanks all. I followed that video and it helped a TON. But.......I got everything all bolted back, was about to close the hood and guess what's sitting on top of the engine? One of the flippin white dust screw-on caps for the passenger light housing. Damnit Jim! Yep, you guessed it- had to take the whole bumper off again. If anyone ever needs help removing their bumper, I would be like a one-man pit crew now. But headlight issue fixed. That was the culprit and I DEFINITELY replaced both.

Thanks again!

 

So, now to replace the twisted wire clock spring. Pretty straight forward. And I did turn my wheel and the horn works, so that's got to be it.

Here's my question: should I go OEM? Huge price difference between OEM and aftermarket in cost. I don't mind rolling the dice UNLESS there would be any potential negative impact to the functionality of the air bag. Someone on here, on one of the threads, mentioned this so just wanted to get clarification as to if it's correct. Doing the job over down the line is one thing, safety is quite another.

 

Just disconnect the battery for about 30 minutes to allow any charge to dissipate. the air bag is then safe to remove. Here is the write up I did a couple years ago. By the way, I did get an OEM from ebay for $189.00. Even though it is not a difficult job, it is not one I wanted to take a chance on. The aftermarket part is very tempting.

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sc4...ing-wheel.html