Please Help Me Diagnose My HID Issue

**SilverWS6** · 07-23-2015, 08:50 PM

Hi all, I'm having a problem with my HID high beams on my 96 TA. I've only had the car since April and the PO said that the high/low HIDs had just been installed not long before the sale. I don't know what brand the kit is. The high beams recently stopped working. Low beams are functioning perfectly. I tried to switch to my high beams one night about two weeks ago and the headlights went out. Blue hi beam light in the dash comes on. I can switch back to lows and they work just fine. I did get the highs to come on once, but they went out after a couple seconds. That was a few nights ago. I have not been able to get the highs to come on since. Any ideas? Please bear with me, I don't really know much about HID lights.

**blackbirdws6** · 07-23-2015, 08:55 PM

They are only two kinds of low/high HID kits. One has a HID lamp for the low beam operation and the other is a small halogen used for the high. The other setup is a single HID lamp with a shield controlled by a solenoid.

Any chance you can see inside and determination which you have? When you click the highs, does everything go dark or there is simply no change in the output?

**SilverWS6** · 07-23-2015, 09:24 PM

Originally Posted by blackbirdws6

They are only two kinds of low/high HID kits. One has a HID lamp for the low beam operation and the other is a small halogen used for the high. The other setup is a single HID lamp with a shield controlled by a solenoid.

Any chance you can see inside and determination which you have? When you click the highs, does everything go dark or there is simply no change in the output?

When I switch to highs, the headlights go completely dark. Is there any specific way to tell which type I have? If it was the solenoid type, where would the solenoid be?

**SilverWS6** · 07-23-2015, 09:36 PM

I just had someone else tell me that the only style for our cars is the shield/solenoid type that uses a magnet. Is this right?

**SilverWS6** · 07-23-2015, 11:00 PM

Upon further examination of mine, they don't appear to be factory housings. There's the main bulb in the center but there's also a smaller blue one underneath it that angles upward. I'll post a pic. The lights are not on in the photo, that's the flash from my camera.

**SilverWS6** · 07-23-2015, 11:01 PM

Sorry, the photo posted sideways for some reason.

**blackbirdws6** · 07-24-2015, 05:37 AM

Originally Posted by SilverWS6

When I switch to highs, the headlights go completely dark. Is there any specific way to tell which type I have? If it was the solenoid type, where would the solenoid be?

Tells me that you may have the two bulb system. I would almost guess this is a wiring issue if both sides go out and nothing else lights up.

Originally Posted by SilverWS6

I just had someone else tell me that the only style for our cars is the shield/solenoid type that uses a magnet. Is this right?

That is not true.

Originally Posted by SilverWS6

Upon further examination of mine, they don't appear to be factory housings. There's the main bulb in the center but there's also a smaller blue one underneath it that angles upward. I'll post a pic. The lights are not on in the photo, that's the flash from my camera.

I can see the main HID lamp but tough to see anything else. The small lamp on the bottom is called a city light. It doesn't serve any real purpose.

Can you get the bulb out so we can really see what you have or even a name on one of the HID ballasts?

**SilverWS6** · 07-24-2015, 07:49 AM

I've looked at both ballasts and there aren't any visible markings, brand names, or part numbers. I'll pull one of the bulbs when I get home this evening.

**SilverWS6** · 07-25-2015, 02:15 PM

I've not been able to find any bad connections in the wiring. I'm really starting to believe that it's the dimmer switch. When I first got the car, sometimes when I'd hit the switch for high beams, they would stay on low beams. Fogs would stay on as well, proving that it stayed on lows. Other times, it would go to high beams, but it would stay stuck on highs even after switching back to lows. When this happened, I would have to turn the headlights off and turn them back on to get back to low beams.