Yes it's only happening on the one side driver's side. Is it about to go out permanently? I'd hate to replace it only to find out the bulb is not bad but something else is wrong instead. Thanks.

 

Are you on HID headlights, or the standard halogens? If it's HIDs, it might be the ballast not igniting the bulb properly, but it's most likely the bulb. If it's halogen, the bulb sounds dead to me.
I'd replace both of the bulbs at a time. Bulbs tend to change color over time, so unless you like having different colored eyes at night, I'd do both at the same time.

 

Anyone have a link to a vendor selling replacement bulbs for my factory HID's? Its 4300k, right?

 

I bought a pair of Phillips bulbs on ebay for $60

Install took all of 15 mins (passenger side add another 5 mins for aibox)... ended up not being the bulb (bad ballast for me) - but certainly not worth almost $300

 

Getting exactly the matching OEM HID bulb will be fairly expensive. Sewell has it for $175 per bulb (!), and the dealer will likely charge even more.

If your OEM bulb has burnt out, I'd recommend replacing both bulbs at the same time for 2 reasons:

1) The color of the HID bulb changes over time and so if you have one bulb that's been run for 60k miles and put a brand new one in the other, they'll look different

2) You can get a pair of non-OEM high quality HID bulbs for far less than the $175 quoted for one OEM bulb

If you do choose to replace both bulbs at the same time with non-OEM, I'd recommend XenonDepot Xtremes for 5000K (my review with pictures here: https://www.clublexus.com/forums/lig...ount-code.html) or Garax for 6000K. Just depends on what temperature you want - 6000K will be much bluer than your stocks, 5000K will be closer to stock but will have no yellow and be a more pure white with a blue tinge. Both are about $100 for a pair.

I didn't list 4300K only because I'm not as familiar with non-OEM sellers' 4300K offerings. I do know that XenonDepot also offers their Xtreme HIDs in 4300K.

Another note: I would not recommend buying bulbs on eBay, especially ones that say they're Philips, as most are fake. Unless they're from a seller that has a brick-and-mortar store or a dealer that happens to sell on eBay, you'll have trouble trying to fulfill warranty claims if something goes wrong. Just know that you're getting what you're paying for - Philips are very high quality bulbs and are therefore fairly expensive. If you find them super cheap on eBay, there's probably a reason.

Lastly, never ever let a dealership charge you to install bulbs. As previous posters have said, installation takes 20 minutes tops and is very easy - there are some great DIY threads here on CL.

 

Your the man calvin! thx!

 

calvin2376,

Glad you're enjoying your D4S 5000k HID bulbs! You are 100% correct about Philips bulbs on ebay. Most of them are fakes (Very good fakes).

Steve

 

Ahh just the answer I was looking for Calvin, Thanks. I am now in the market for some HID bulbs and I may go with the garax brand like you have suggested. Will the garax bulbs fully function like my stock bulbs, as far as the autol-eveling effect, and the AFS ability? My apologies for the simplicity of this question.

 

^ Yes it will. AFS doesn't have to do with your bulbs; its a motor that moves the projector.

 

Thank you!

 

if it's only happening to one side, swap your bulbs (passenger to driver) and that will give you a high degree of confidence in whether it's a bad bulb or not.

i just put in a set of the garax 6000k to match all my '6k' leds and like them a lot.

 

So I'm bumping a bit of an old thread here (one of my HIDs seems to have just died, and this was one of the first good threads that popped up in my search for help), but can anyone point me to a good DIY thread on replacing my bulbs? Or will it be pretty self-explanatory?

In the FAQ thread, I only saw a thread on replacing stock halogens with HIDs, although I imagine the instructions will probably be similar.

EDIT: Also, is there any difference between D4S and D4R that I should be concerned about?

 

Here is the thread I used for the install (was easy)

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/is-...hid-bulbs.html

My left bulb started blinking recently...sometimes it will flicker for 30 seconds then just go out. If I turn the lights off, then back on, the bulb will re-fire.
I have a bad feeling it is the ballast...

I need to get in there and swap the bulbs to see if it is the ballast or not.

 

Thanks for the link blajoie.

So are you saying that you've already replaced both bulbs, and now you're starting to see that flickering problem? If so, that's strange, but just based on this thread and another similar one I've seen, it seems like a lot of people are having that problem where their bulb sort of becomes flaky for a while, and they start suspecting it's their ballast. With this happening to that many people, I would bet that this problem is usually bulb, but I guess it's easy enough to find out.

Incidentally, I noticed the last couple nights that I drove that the HID that I thought was done for is on again... I guess these bulbs just become finicky when they're about to die?

 

Try our HID! Our HID will not flickering at all! good quality