2010 intermittent driver side headlight out warning

[pappasmurf]

Bought a 2010 roc recently from a garage. Great car. It has an hid kit fitted. Recently (after 6 months of owning) it has developed afternoon intermittent fault with the front drivers side headlamp. It fails to illuminate occasionally but if I turn the lights 'off' then 'on' a few times it kicks in. Therefore.....The bulb must be ok as must the wiring. What would cause this?

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[blower]

Could be the high voltage driver or the bulb - all because it does eventually come on doesn't mean the bulb is ok, its a HID lamp so has to strike and start conducting to light (much like a fluorescent tube that struggles to start).

A word about aftermarket HID kits - they are illegal, no matter what people say. The regs are very clear on this - unless you have headlight washers AND the bulb is in a projector (front focusing glass lens) housing (ie they are not just a bulb added to a normal halogen reflector headlight) then they are technically an MOT failure and most MOT test centres will fail them, the ones that pass them are negligent, breaking the reg's and should be shutdown imo.

I'm only lecturing as they bug the hell out of me when they are coming at me on the other side of the road - the normal headlight reflector housing doesn't focus the light so it shines out everywhere, blinding oncoming (me) traffic. This happens no matter how much you lower them. As for the headlight washer bit, that side of things is pointless in this country - but it is a legal requirement.

[pappasmurf]

I didn't put the kit on. It was already on the car and to be honest......I never even knew it had it until it was being driven out the garage. I had already bought philips bulbs to fit so had to put them.in a cupboard. Thanks for the advice though. Just to add.....I'm unsure of HID requirements....but the bulbs are housed in some sort of cover inside the lens.

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[uklee]

Your problem will be the ballast pack for the HID lamp .

HID's require something like 30 000v (yes - Thirty thousand volts) to start them , and then around 80 volts to maintain the arc . This is the ballasts job . The ballasts can be easily damaged (particularly when supplied with less than 9v due to a poor earth or flat battery , but usually its down to the very poor build quality and cheap components - there's a reason that a single OEM ballast costs £100's , and your cheap HID kit off ebay cost less than £50....

When the ballast starts to go flaky then you get the same problem that your describing.

I have to say , I'm absolutely with Blower on this one . Vehicles fitted with HID kits in normal 'reflector' style lamps are a complete fucking menace. The glare they give off is blinding to oncoming road users. In the rain ,at night - the light scatter they give off is positively dangerous. It's even worse if you're a biker like me - it's dark , it's raining , your visor is streaming with raindrops and some bright spark (pun intended) is coming toward you thinking that his car looks really 'cool' . The trouble is - it doesn't look cool , in fact the poor dude on the bike couldn't tell you what it looks like - because he's got the motorists equivalent of 'arc eye' , you've just temporarily blinded him and he cant see a bloody thing.

In almost all circumstances i'm dead against the government or any other official body telling me how i can / can not modify my car or bike - but in this case , they've got it right. They're illegal for a bloody good reason.

Do yourself ( and everyone else unfortunate enough to be driving toward you ) a favour - take the kit off your car , and go fit your conventional bulbs instead . You may aswell - the ballasts are goosed anyway..........

Lee

[pappasmurf]

Thanks for the advice

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