I recently had my passenger side headlight quit working. I have not swapped bulbs to see whether it is the ballast. As far as I know, both sides are factory. I have owned the car for 11 years, and I have never replaced any of those components. Is there a better setup to go with than OEM? If I pull it apart, I will likely replace both sides. If you have recommendations for replacement high beams, fog, and the small bulb in the housing, I would like to hear those, too.


For the Xenon replacement, I am leaning towards the Philips X-treme Vision D2R.

 

this is what you want. By once, cry once. Might as well order two and do them both at once, which is very easy on our cars (covered here somewhere if you search a bit). Other bulbs are down to personal preference but for the mains, get the Philips.

 

I was going to get two of the higher versions of that bulb. I have one headlight that has some condensation. Is there anyone who reseals them, or is that only an at home job?

 

I had my old mechanic take my headlights apart and reseal them years ago which helped. After a few years one started getting condensation again and both headlights were having problems with the ballast compartments getting water in them. We tried sealing the compartment up as well but it didn't work. I've been through six ballasts since 2015 and had another one go out last year.

I ended up buying another set of headlights off of eBay last month. I have come across a few sets of potted ballasts that are fully waterproof and plan to use them whenever I get my housings swapped out.

As far as resealing the headlights themselves goes, if you're brave enough to take the housings apart then I would recommend buying some sealant from TheRetrofitSource or Lightwerkz. I had good luck replacing the sealant on my SC300's headlights with whichever one TheRetrofitSource recommended to me at the time.

Those Phillips bulbs should be good. I went with the Osram Cool Blue Boost for a look closer to 6000k. Osram and Phillips are great choices. Some people have used Morimotos as well. The Phillips last a long a time and are a safe bet if they are authentic bulbs.