Hey guys, I have a McCulloch HID kit in the fogs of my Rav4. One of the bulbs is not not lighting up. I tried to turn it off an on thinking that it will pop back on. No luck. Could it be the bulb, ballast or ignitor of the kit that is not working? How can you tell if an HID bulb is no longer good? What should i do?

 

Switch the working bulb to that side if it works then that means the bulb is bad.

 

Unfortunately I've heard some stories of complaints from customers who purchased McCulloch HID kits (esp. from NYC locals), and from what I gather, this aftermarket brand is not as reliable as Phillip, Denso, etc. Having said that, it sounds like you have a poor quality product in your hands, and the chances of getting a full redemption from such a product are slim to none. Sucks but it's true

 

McCulloch isnt that bad, it is aftermarket, but they are pretty popular. however their quality doesnt compare to oem.

but as mentioned above, switch the bulbs to see if it is your bulb, if not at least you have that singled out.

 

sean first flip the bulbs. that is the easiest way. and if you have a seperate ignitor than try switching that also.

 

I've had a McCulloch HID kit for over a year and I've had no problems except for one time where one of the bulbs didn't turn on but I just turned it off and on again.

 

I took out the bulb that was not functional and it has a bubbled-up brown tinge in the center. Is that a sign of a possible burned out bulb? I did not get a chance to switch bulbs to test since it was night time. I will try this weekend.

 

That could be a sign, but the sure way is to switch them out.

 

I believe that means the bulb is burnt out. I had nothing but problems with my McCulloch HID kit in my Eclipse GSX. First I had the ballast unit go bad after 6 months and then after purchasing a ballast the bulb burnt out after two months. It seemed to be a quality kit when I bought it, but obviously many have had similar problems so I will never touch one from them again. Good luck diagnosing the issue.

 

my bet is on the ballast having an issue.

my philips kit had yellowish/brown residue in the bulbs when i pulled out the kit a few months ago - they still worked fine but from what I see on here - it's the ballasts that fail before the bulbs.

also - with your hid kit not firing up, i'm willing to bet it's because your ballasts are not connected directly to your battery and the ballasts are trying to pull the 23,000 volt spike of energy needed to ignite your bulbs through your factory electrical system. this is a big no-no for 2 reasons, one - strains your electrical system and two - it strains your ballast since it doesn't get as much power as it should.

here's what i would do to test - swap the ballasts and see if that suspected bulb fires up. if it does - you have a dead ballast on your hands.