For the second time this year both low beam headlight bulbs quit working at the same time on our '02 ES300. The first time I thought it was coincidence and changed both bulbs. Now I'm wondering what could have caused this again, both high beams work though. Is there a "heavy duty" bulb available?

 

Greetings:

Are you certain that both bulbs died? I ask this because I'm currently trying to change my brake/tail lights to LED bulbs and the ECU will not allow the change of just the right and left bulbs. It wont light both the left and right t the same time and the high mounted bulb stays on. It appears that I have to change the high mounted bulb to LED also for the ECU to make its adjustments to the new low current bulbs.

Sorry for the long winded story of my problem but I learned clearly that the lights aren't hard wired to a power source in these cars. The computer decides which light to send current to. It's possible that only one of your bulbs died and the ECU "decided" not to light the other. I would check the bulbs with an ohm meter or a 12 volt DC source before tossing both bulbs.

Good Luck,

Vic
Fort Myers, Florida
2003 ES300 Mllennium Silver 104K miles

 

Check the sockets for corrosion, if corroded, you will have too much resistance on the contacts and it would result in a short life span of the bulbs, even heavy duties will not last as they were designed to do so. The longer lasting ones also do not shine as bright to lengthen their life span.

If sockets are clean then you would need to check the headlight switch or even the stalk in the steering wheel for corrosion

 

Since both bulbs, which are relatively new, stopped working at the same time, (twice) there has to be more to your story than what you have described.

Think hard, and try to provide more details.
Phil