Really, Really Poor Low Beam (HID) Performance
 

I have a 2004 ES330 with the HID low beams. They are truly awful, decidedly worse than my 1993 Dodge lights. They are roughly on par with the factory fog lights (which themselves have very yellowed cloudy covers). Both sides are just as bad. They've always been this way since I owned the car (3 years). I have tried nearly everything I can think of, and nothing has made a perceptible difference.

• new Philips bulbs
• new ballast (one side)
• cleaned and polished covers so they looked new. There is a slight amount of reflection on the backside of the covers but it is really not much at all and I don't think it could be responsible for the horrible light output.
• checked and adjusted aim (was nearly perfect)
• completely disassembled one headlight to check the bowls and lens. It looked absolutely pristine, not even the faintest trace of burn or damage anywhere.

The halogen high beams work great, it's only the low beams.

The next thing I think I'll try is check the power at the ballasts. I might run a dedicated fused power wire from the battery to the ballast, not sure what else to do.

Any advice would be great. I have researched and haven't come across anyone with the same issue.

Thanks

Could try a cheap ballast temporarily to see if the light output changes.

I did replace one ballast, it made no difference. Gonna break out the multimeter tomorrow.

Tonight I drove home in some very light fog. 15mph was the max I could safely go. Truly the light ouput is enough to illuminate about 30 feet max.

That's not the same thing as a temporary ballast powered directly from the battery. Be very careful when using your meter the startup voltage of those ballasts is nasty.

Ah I misunderstood you.

Yeah I know they are high voltage but once they are warmed up a standard multimeter can test them right?

Yes, I've done it just be careful. I should have been more clear about hooking up a ballast directly so it bypasses any potential wiring issues. But are you sure the light output is not normal? I mean it sounds like it's pretty bad but for both sides to be the same is odd.

Yeah I'm positive it's not normal; they are dangerously bad. They have the worst output of any car I've driven--and most of the cars I've driven are a fair bit older.

I'll give it more investigation today an post up what I find. Thanks for your help, I appreciate it.

Perhaps a picture of the headlights output at night time, with a decent camera?

Sure, I'll try to get that, maybe a comparison shot between it and my Honda. I checked voltage today and it's getting 13.8 volts at the car side of the ballast connector.

Rather than testing the connector I would just try a new ballast if possible. Even a cheap ballast off Amazon would do.

edit.
sorry never mind. I didnt see the first post where you mentioned you bought a new ballast for one side.

Yeah one of the ballasts was going bad anyway, intermittently powering on and off, so I replaced it and it fixed that problem, but still the same brightness.

The bit of UV damage inside the headlight cover causes some of the light to be reflected back but it seems very minor. Still, I guess if I surrender all other possibilities, I'll take a hole saw to the cover haha.

I have a similar issue to yours. I bought my 04 ES330 about 4 months ago and the OEM HID's weren't all that great (I feel they might be the original Philips bulbs since my car only had 122k when I got it and they looked old when I took them out). So I replaced the bulbs with new Philips 85126 4300K bulbs and one of the bulbs sometimes doesn't turn on, especially after about 1.5hrs of driving with the lights on, I'll stop for gas, turn the lights back on to start driving and that one won't turn on again until I turn the lights off and back on (sometimes takes a couple tries for it to come back on), I've swapped the bulbs around and the same issue carries over with that bulb. I sent that defective bulb back for a replacement and the replacement does the same thing. So I ended up putting the old Philips bulbs back in and don't have any issues. Now I'm wondering if I should try another good pair of new aftermarket bulbs to see what happens and hope to get better lighting output.

Your comment prompted me to remove a bulb and see if it indeed was genuine. It appears to be genuine; however, while checking online, I realized I had the wrong bulbs in there! It had D2R bulbs in it when I got it, so that's what I replaced them with. If I had checked the manual I would have realized this car takes D2S bulbs. They are very similar bulbs. The difference is that the D2S is mean to be used with projectors, while the D2R is used with a typical reflective bowl. The D2R has a coating on half the bulb meant to reduce glare, which is not necessary with the projector bulbs. I replaced one bulb with a D2S and while I haven't had it out in the dark yet, it is very obvious just looking at the front of the car that the D2R has roughly half the effective light output of the D2S.

Sigh...This is super embarrassing but I figured I'd sacrifice my pride (ha) and post up anyway so as not to leave an open-ended thread. I guess the lesson I learned was to never assume that a part you remove from a car is the correct part for that car...always confirm.