SC430fun

I first searched for info on this issue, and found some things, but I am still wondering where to begin when I diagnose these. I really have to get this fixed asap!

My HID's are flickering and sometimes turn off.. When start my car and turn on the lights, its on for a few moments and they flicker, and then the driver side turns off. I toggle the switch off and on, and they fire right back up, but few moments later its off again. After about 10 minutes of doing that, they usually stay on, but once I make a quick stop (at store or bank for example) and turn off the headlights, the issue starts again and I usually cant get them to stay on after that unless I park the car for a few hours, and go through the 10 mins of screwing around with them again. Sometimes it will cause the passenger side to turn off as well, or sometimes even both!

I really need to fix this, along with my front parking lights in the bumper and the rear side bumper lights as well. I also have to take care of my license plate lights, which the harness does not even seem to be there behind the left lens, and the right one is missing.

I want to fix them, but if I take apart the fixtures, I want to polish the inside of the lens. and do any other mods at that time. I want to stick with the HID's, but maybe get some different bulbs for the low beam, that funky yellowish light that runs during the day, and the fog lights. I am not going to mess around with the LED's for a while. I had halogens in my last car that I had to update to HID to get good light, and these SC lights are even better since they are auto leveling, and turn with the car for the most part as well.

Does this sound like the bulbs? I heard of people online changing the bulbs and still having this issue. I thought it could be ballasts, but I am a newbie to the HID lighting so I am not sure. There are youtube vids up with this issue on the SC and ES models also I believe, so this is a known problem that pops up for everyone at one point during ownership.

Coleroad

The bulb and the ballasts can both cause this event. Me i see that it as change the bulbs first. If I still have a problem I would change the ballasts. Thankfully in the past on my cars it has always just been a bulb.

GmanSC

Change the bulbs. This is common problems with Toyota cars using HID. Same problem with my wife's Prius. Bough the bulbs from Amazon, about 50 bucks each, still much cheaper than dealer price. I don't know how accessible in the SC, in the Prius you can replace the bulbs in half an hour. Search YouTube for how to videos.

lbintab

iTrader: (1)

This happens when the bulb is coming up on its end of life. Change it out but make sure you get the right bulbs. D2s for before minor change and d4s for after minor change. While you're at it swap out the bulbs that are out.

hlthlnk

I had the same issue a few years back and posted a DIY. search "replacing headlight bulb"

The one thing I would suggest is to change all the light bulbs, including the foglight, on the front of the car. If you can replace with LED's since they last longer.

Two weeks after I replaced my headlight bulbs, my turn signal bulb gave out so I had to lower the front bumper again( a little bit of a pain) to replace all the bulbs at once.

Good luck

OBP

Good advice there. Unless you are skilled at manipulating your fingers and wrist/forearms etc. it is very hard to make all those changes without taking down the front bumper.

SC430fun

Are there any good aftermarket HID bulbs I can use that have a more purplish hue to them? I have seen them around but was wondering if I can screw anything up doing that. I am kinda new to HID's and have only dealt with super bright halogens, and leds before.

I appreciate the responses,, this issue is driving me nuts.

Do the headlight assemblies come apart easily? My inside lens is pretty dirty and I really want to clean it up both inside and outside.

OBP

Dunno about disassembling the housing itself - do a search cos some have painted the inside of their headlamp housing. On bulbs, I am using Phillips HIDs bought from eBay - I got 6000k color temp vs 4300k OEM color temp so I have slightly blueish white light. My guess is you will need 7000k or higher color temp to get a purplish hue but online sources will tell you exactly what color temp is purplish.

Cube

I would assume the ballast. But the symptoms is a bit different. When I had my Subaru, the symptoms of a ballast failing was the light would get dim and after awhile just fades out. i changed the ballast and still used the old bulb.

ShawnOk

iTrader: (1)

As I mentioned above, baking the headlights will allow you to remove the clear plastic lens, if you really want to clean it. There are lots of videos on YouTube, but be warned doing so can introduce moisture into the headlight which can lead to premature failure of the HIDs. But if you plan to replace them, might be a good idea to bake them now. I was going to bake my headlights to install Audi style LED tube strips, but didn't want to take the risk since my HID's are still good. If my HID's were going out now, I would do it for sure.