OldNick

4 hours ago, Alexmed2002 said:

You could just go under the wheel well and peel back the liner to get quick access to the back of the headlights, but it is narrow if you have big hands. It would be easy to just qquickly check the wires at least.

Yeah I have done both methods (man I can't believe what a crap job it is just to change a light globe! No wonder I see so many modern cars with one headlamp). The trouble is also that if you go through the wheel well you are working blind _and_ cramped.

4 hours ago, NVAKeith said:

I believe JDM models had HID available from factory. Maybe a dying HID ballast on that one light?

But as I said, the trouble spreads to various lights, including the high beam and parkers. The one HID just seems to be the most common. I don't want to spend hours mucking about "chasing the ace" as the lights randomly fail.

OK, thanks.

I do not think this car has normal halogen bulbs for the low beam.. There is a driver module for the low beam , that makes a quiet high pitched buzz. The bulbs have a wire that is outside the bulbs that I assumed was the high voltage wire to drive the HID.

What gets me is the fact that the high beam and parkers are incandescent and they are failing as well.

BUT......I will start to once again deconstruct the front end of the car.

do i get a notification

This is my wife's car. So she drives it, and she is the one that reports light failure.

The car has incandescent high beam and parkers and HID low beam.

The trouble is that at first, the RHS (driver's side ) low beam HID went out...sometimes. Every time I had a look, it would work again. It SEEMED that driving the car would cause it. But it was not repeatable, as often it would keep working after a drive, or fail without one.

Then both HID lights went out, again sporadically. Again I could not usually fault it when I had access.

Then my wife reported that none of the lights worked, including the parkers. But when I checked, they all worked.

We took the car for a back roads drive, to try to both heat the system and give it a bit of a shaking....when we got back, and at various checks during the drive, the lights all worked.

Later that afternoon I checked again and the RHS HID (low beam) had failed again.

I hate intermittents. Has anyone any ideas? Where do I look for a possible dodgy connection that randomly controls different lamps?

Thanks for any help.

Nick

Actually you have led me to think (and no this is not going to be a pun ).

I will look hard at simply swapping the whole loom and using HID globes again. I was sort of on an "adapt" path and swapping he whole loom may be a simpler way.

Thanks for the nudge.

Nick

hmmm....certainly worth a thought. The drivers for the globes are actually in the headlight unit. I need to see if the new ones have room for them. They look enough like the old ones to fool me regarding what type of globe they had.

Not going to be easy, because of the special wiring for the HID. Also, is the inside of the low beam globe enclosure able to handle the heat of the HID? The reason for all of this is that even the originals were destroyed by the heat.

OK. After several interruptions I have revisited the situation.

Has anyone done a conversion from HID to Incandescent? I have come up against significant trouble.

The biggest trouble seems to be that there may be other circuitry under the bonnet, in addition to the ignitor in the headlight unit. fdw

There are 3 wires going to the igniter unit.I assumed that the wires to the igniter unit would still have voltage going to the bulb, along with voltage to the ignitor. I was sort of right. One pair produced 12v with low beam on, the other pair 9.8. So I assumed that the 12v pair woud be OK for the newer, tungsten bulb, I can see a current problem though.

However, when I switched off the low beam, both (12v + 9.8V) of those pairings of the 3 wires remain energised for maybe 40-60 secs. This indicates that there is circuitry inside the bonnet that "slow cool" the HID. My wife has said the HID globes stay on for a few seconds after she shuts down.

If it is normally only a few seconds, then a load is making it faster. But the volts stay dead flat: this is not just a capacitor. I will probably blow a circuit by asking it to supply a 65w globe when it is designed fro an 18 w HID.

Anyway my question is "Has anyone done this conversion?"

Thanks for any info

Nick

EDIT: D'OH. I of course HAVE two sockets that fit the car....the ones from the old headlights. Basic trailer wiring. Please ignore this stuff until I post a result.

Is this actually an HID / non-HID issue or a USA Australia (Legacy/Liberty) issue? My car's main socket is completely different from the ones on the new headlight units I bought.

I have bought replacement headlight units for my Subaru Liberty 2012. Trouble is, I bought them "cheap" from the US at a massive freight cost.

I realised quite soon into my attempted replacement that the new units were non-HID (no wiring but the casing is there still for the driver) ...... and hence cheaper than others.

I can live with non-HID low beam, but the plug and socket from the new lights is very different from the one on the car.

Is there an adaptor? (preferred for time reasons). I am happy to do thew wiring, especially if I can work on the headlight side and leave the car alone. But I am concerned that in Australia, we may not have the non-HID Liberty GT and therefore there will be no correct sockets. Do the same sockets fit other cars and maybe I can try wreckers?

Could I wire in the HID driver unit to the new headlight unit, using the old bulb socket and wiring?

Thanks for any help.

Nick

gotcha. i used a "2k" clear coat, basically a 2 part automotive paint clear coat.

Thanks for that. I will check it out.

Nick

Hi guys. No it's not the bulb installation. They have both been dimming over time. I did install a bulb, but the other bulb was not taken out, and both are dim.

Nick

Thanks for chipping in. Yeah I got the polishing part OK, but it was the really clear coat that that I have not seen. As I say the _really_ clear coats I have not met.

Geeze! What was wrong with glass cowls?

Nick

we're all here to help if you've got questions(and we know the answers!).

 

if you're polishing out your headlights and not protecting the fresh plastic with UV resistant clear coat or other means they are just going to deteriorate again quickly. you can go through the process of sanding them down, polishing them up, and covering them in some paint protection film, or use a UV blocking clear paint and the clearness should last for a couple years.

OK. Thanks! So once they go they are weakened. Sounds reasonable. The damage is right through, I know that. From my boating, I have UV varnish, but it is not clear, but designed to give a golden tint. Is there a special clear coat for UV resistance.

Once again thanks. If you guys are wiling to talk me through, a saving of $600 would be nice

Nick

Hi guys. Thanks for the input and an interesting chat.

Having thought about this, I am pretty much decided to remove one unit and actually try to see what the problem is. I may take photos and post them up here and based on that I would welcome discussion.

Seems to me that the _easiest_ and quickest option, if not the cheapest, is to simply buy aftermarket entire units and replace the old ones (if that is what is needed). In Oz, it costs Aud$600/pair. Part of that decision is because the cowls were seriously scratched and sun-damaged. I used a plastic polishing kit and it comes up well, but I get the feeling I will be doing it more and more often as time goes on, because I did one lens and I reckon it's already deteriorating again.

Nick.

Some of these repair options I would need further explanation: I am not thick but this is a whole new world to me, who is used to working on older vehicles.

WOW! You guys are great! Having said that it leaves me with a lot of into to process. Getting at this stuff is such a PITA. I will see if I can work out what is what by peering through the front end at first (and I bet that is a waste of time).

I am angry that I am doing this to a less than 10 yo car and a top of the range one for Subaru as well.!

Nick

Out of curiosity, are you using the "auto" setting on the headlight switch, or are you manually turning them off and on? If the daylight sensor on the dash burns out, the low beams will never actually turn on. Drove the car home in the rain like that just after I bought it, thinking that the headlights were way crappier than I would have expected, but that was because all I had lit up was the DRLs. I'll be honest, I don't even know if the AU market cars have daytime running lights, so this may not even apply for you.

 

You mention having HIDs- it could be that the reflector bowls inside the headlight housing are burnt. I'm not sure how the reflector coating differs between housings used with factory HIDs vs. halogens, but I've heard of burnt bowls happening with HID retrofit kits, and I suppose it's not impossible with factory HIDs.

Obviously I need to check that DRL thing! But yeah in this thread the reflector thing starts to sound like a goer: as I said it is deteriorating.

I guess my question is: Can I get a replacement, simple Halogen globe, even if I have to change the holder? The HID is fabulously expensive (Aud $100+/ globe) and a PITA to fit (this whole thing is a PITA) and videos of other replacements look a whole lot easier. Also HID lights for low beam? Really?

Whinge over

Nick

And if you go this route, please do not buy the cheap chinese assemblies. They are terrible, hence why you always should go OEM with headlight assemblies.

Yes, I start to see that. There is a lot of work to replace these. But I have to say that the performance of the OEM stuff does not exactly make me happy. I start to understand why I see so many modern cars with missing headlights, tail lights etc.

Since the OP mentioned Liberty and HID, I assume this is an Oz car?

 

These have factory HID projectors. When the reflector goes, they are gone and light output goes with them.

 

High beams were not affected as these come from a different bulb and reflector.

 

Easiest fix is replace the assemblies, but are $$$.

 

You can get the projectors only replaced, cheaper but a lot of work.

 

I am not sure which projector works best with our housings. The Retrofit Source offers a kit that covers our model years but they are made for US cars and I'm not sure if they will fit our lights.

Thanks for the reply.

A whole new world. You mention projector and reflector and assembly:confused:.

So the projector is the bulbous lens in front of the headlight element? I assumed these did not also have a reflector. Really sorry. Not being a SmAa, just needing to make sure.

Having just replaced the actual "bulb" I am aware of what needs to be done to get into the unit and replace stuff.....it's a PITA (HAH! As I replaced the last popper studs under the bumper I saw that the foglight glass was broken ) So I assume I would need to do that again.

But are those bulbous lenses what is failing? They look clear. Is there something _behind_ the globe that fails?

As I replaced one of the globes and the problem has not gone away it has to be something else.

My wife complained of dim headlights in her car last Winter. They were a little dim, but when I saw them to check it was dusk and I reckoned they were....OK. Both headlight cowls were scored and dull, so I used a plastic polishing kit to shine them up. It worked very well and helped, but still not startling.

What really brought it home was driving into our home in the pretty well dark tonight and even my wife admitted that they worse than they had been. I had to admit they were dangerous. Also, we went into and underground parking lot and I could see that other cars' headlights were just lighting up stuff that we were not getting.

Recently I replaced one of the globes (biznitch of a job!). We hoped that maybe it was the dead globe that that had dulled things. But this evening I went out with my wife in the car, and the headlights are next to useless. This not just the side I fixed, but the other side as well (which I re-polished and obtained an even better finish.. The light actually seems to be deteriorating.

The globes our car uses are 35w Xenon globes... I bought Narva, but the Phillips eq. is a D2R, I think. I struggle to find another reference to these! These should shine like the sun ( they cost enough!).

Parkers and other lights including Hi-beam, are perfectly OK, so I assume my polishing efforts have not cause some mysterious effect.

Is there something to look for that is failing, or an adjustment that can be made?

Appreciate any help

Nick