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Thread: HID Problem/Fix Question

  1. #1
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    HID Problem/Fix Question

    My car, purchased 4 months ago, came with a 55W ballast Prolumen HID setup. I have no idea how long its been in there, but it has started to act up. The passenger side flickers when igniting then gives up; it never fully illuminates. I am very ignorant when it comes to electrical and lighting issues, so I'm hoping Bfc can save me again. There are old DIY's, but I'm running into a lot of dead picture links.

    From what I am reading, a lot of these old HID kits were pretty suspect. I at least will check the fuses and swap the bulbs and ballasts this weekend and see if that pinpoints anything; but I am not super inclined to maintain this setup if it requires much more than a new bulb. So here are my questions, keeping in mind that this is not a project I want to get into a lot of tinkering with:

    1. What kind of lighting are you all running these days? What is recommended? Are LED's viable?

    2. If I decide to go back to OE, what do I need to make that happen? A PO installed DJ Auto headlights as well FYI.

    Look forward to hearing everyone's opinions.

  2. #2
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    If you can't figure out what you want, your head is going to explode when you run into a real problem.
    Attn. NEWBIES: Use the search feature, 98% has already been discussed.
    Click the search button, select "search single content type", select the "e36 sub forum" specifically, try the "search titles" then try the "search entire posts".

  3. #3
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    What i want is to gather information to decide what i am going to pursue. Do you have any of this information to share?

  4. #4
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    To verify if it's the bulb or ballast, swap the passenger's bulb to the driver's side and see if it lights up. If it does, the passenger's ballast is failing. If it still flickers and does not fully light up, then it must be the bulb.

    You can get another hid kit on ebay and call it a day, however, stock style headlight housings are not designed to work with hid bulbs.

    To go back to oe, just get a quality bulb and put it in.

  5. #5
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    Yeah I will do a quick troubleshoot like you described this weekend. You kind of got to my other question with the OE bulb suggestion- since the car has DJ Auto euro headlights and an HID kit already installed, has it been modified such that I cant simply pop in a halogen bulb anymore? And for the bulb, I'm going to need a different bulb than was used on the US headlights?

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by Charlemango View Post
    Yeah I will do a quick troubleshoot like you described this weekend. You kind of got to my other question with the OE bulb suggestion- since the car has DJ Auto euro headlights and an HID kit already installed, has it been modified such that I cant simply pop in a halogen bulb anymore? And for the bulb, I'm going to need a different bulb than was used on the US headlights?
    I did a quick search for dj auto headlights for the e36 and I came across pictures that show it has a projector headlight. Is this correct? If yes, I'd stick with the HID but if you're curious about the oem style bulb then buy a set to try out to compare the difference.

    Usually the HID ballast connects between the bulb and the oem headlight socket.

    Post some pictures of the headlights and bulb harness that way we can get a better idea of what you're working with.

  7. #7
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    The ballasts on a lot of those old kits are junk. I had one literally explode in my face. Check out theretrofitsource.com for some quality replacements. The dj auto projectors are decent, I've run them. It's a ZKW knockoff but it works well.

    Typically if it's a bad bulb, it's an all or nothing situation. But like others suggested swap the one from the other side and see. My money is on the ballast though.

    Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

  8. #8
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    If the light tries to turn on, then the fuse is not the problem. A blown fuse will kill the circuit, and the light won't even try to come on.

    You are describing a defective ballast. When I installed HIDs into my car, the ballasts connected to the vehicle wiring using the connections that formerly went directly to the bulbs, then the ballast had new connections that went to the HIDs. The ballasts come on slowly, that is the lights come up to full brightness after a few seconds. You can test the ballast by moving the working bulb to the other side of the car and see if it works, you may as well put the non-working bulb on the good side to see if it fails the same way. The results of this test will tell you if the problem is with the car -- HID ballast -- or with the bulb.

    HID means, High Intensity Discharge. Bulbs that operate like this take extremely high voltage and the electricity forms an arc across a gap. You can have trouble with the ballast that creates the high voltage, or with the bulb itself.

    A standard bulb has a filament that that illuminates when electricity passes. An HID is kind of like an arc welder, high voltage jumps a gap and illuminates as this is happening. The ballast can be on the fritz and does not charge up well, and the gap on the bulb can become too large and the electricity cannot jump across. If a known good bulb works on multiple ballasts, then the ballasts are good. If a known good bulb works in one place but not another, then the place where it does not work has a bad ballast.

    - - - Updated - - -

    I installed DJ Auto HIDs, the bulbs are not interchangeable among OEM and the DJ Auto. Maybe what I had was DDM, not DJ Auto. My lights came from a place that operated (operated) out of Vista, CA. HIDs have an entirely different lamp housing, and you cannot simply swap the bulbs from HID to halogen, and vice versa.

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by JDStrickland View Post

    - - - Updated - - -

    I installed DJ Auto HIDs, the bulbs are not interchangeable among OEM and the DJ Auto. Maybe what I had was DDM, not DJ Auto. My lights came from a place that operated (operated) out of Vista, CA. HIDs have an entirely different lamp housing, and you cannot simply swap the bulbs from HID to halogen, and vice versa.
    I've installed a couple of HID kits on different cars and all of them installed into the oem headlight housings, and if I needed to remove them then the oem bulbs go back in with no problems. One would purchase an HID kit with the same bulb type (hb3, hb4, hb7, h4, etc) as their oem bulb so it'll be an easy r&r job with no modifications needed.

    I have no experience with dj auto or DDM so those housings may very well be different like you say.

  10. #10
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    Its been a crazy week but I'm finally coming back to this. I swapped the ballasts, the passenger still does not light, and the driver side still works. This tells me that a new HID bulb is what I need, I will confirm with a bulb swap later. This leaves me with 3 options:

    1. Get a new Prolumen 55W HID H1 bulb from bavtoys.com
    2. Get a Euro plug and play wiring harness from msportparts.com, H1 halogen bulbs, and possibly more hardware to receive the bulb? Also need to cover the hole thats been drilled in the projector backing for the HID wires. Since I dont have an unmolested DJ Auto projector in hand, its hard to know how much I need beyond wiring and a bulb.

    3. Get a whole new headlight setup.

    Looking at the way things have been wired, im inclined to get the new bulb and also get the wiring harness and route the wiring so that its behind the dust cover. I do not love the uncovered connections on the high beam wires, and it makes me hold the rest of the install as suspect. I circled the high beam connection in yellow:

    IMG_5833.jpg

  11. #11
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    I just purchased a 1999 M Roadster and realized the headlights aren't working. I am searching the old threads to see if I can find the problem or where to begin. All of the running lights work, but none of the headlights. I started looking into it tonight and noticed that one of the previous owners installed an HID conversion. I'm guessing that it's the ballast that is bad. Is there a way to test these?
    HID.jpg

  12. #12
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    Try swapping the bulb from one side to the other to see if either works. If none, disconnect the oem harness from the ballast and connect it to an oem style bulb. If it works you know it's the ballast, if it doesn't then it's something else.

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sporting1 View Post
    I just purchased a 1999 M Roadster and realized the headlights aren't working. I am searching the old threads to see if I can find the problem or where to begin. All of the running lights work, but none of the headlights. I started looking into it tonight and noticed that one of the previous owners installed an HID conversion. I'm guessing that it's the ballast that is bad. Is there a way to test these?
    HID.jpg
    Are both headlights out? Just seems odd both ballast or bulbs would be bad. Have you retraced the wiring?

  14. #14
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    I bought new 5k bulbs for mine. One was fully burned out, and both ballasts fine. Its possible that both bulbs are shot, they dont last forever.

    Im not sure if you can check the ballasts, dont they send a huge voltage spike to light the bulbs? Id think you could disconnect the ballasts and see if they are getting power at least.

  15. #15
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    Back to this BS. Both HID lights are dead now after working well for 8 months. Got weird flickering in my OBC and radio one morning when trying to turn them on, and am getting 3 chimes from the dash that sound like the OBC chime. the chimes happen when trying to turn on the low beams (HID.) They dont flicker and fail to ignite, they just do nothing. Might be bad ballasts, IDK I'm done with this (and not into the possibility of my car catching flame from some bunk wiring/ballasts) and working on going OEM euro (option 3. from post #10). I bought H7 halogens and MSportparts harnesses. I will update this thread with my results. Hopefully the original H7 wires are still in place behind the dust cover. Based on the quality of the HID installation I can only assume they just left them there, which would be a favor to me at this point.

  16. #16
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    Finished this up last night. For now i have electrical tape over the HID holes in the dust covers. The wires were in place, H7's went in and job was done in an hour. Felt good to get all that trash out of there.

    HID light dispersion was great and all but the halogens in my dj auto housings is fine. Maybe someday ill decide that driving 130 mph in deer country is important to me but until then oem it is.

  17. #17
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    Sounds like your ballasts are going bad imo.

  18. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by E36 Em Tree View Post
    Sounds like your ballasts are going bad imo.
    I suspected. They would have failed at the same time which seems odd but im no machine failure scientist. fuses were all good.

  19. #19
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    I'm not an electrician either but when I did small maintenance work on lights flickering or having trouble firing up I would change the ballast on commercial lights. If it's the same for cars idk... but with an educated GUESS it would probably be that. It's also the main component for HIDs to run on the cars obviously

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