What a Night

[Carter]

Tonight when I got out of work, I started my car, and turned my headlights on, but only the parking lights illuminated. Interior lights did come on also. I found the problem to be the wiring harness to my HIDs to be melted as it came loose and was resting on something hot when I parked it this morning. I cut the harness where it was melted and tapped up the individual wires. Both fuses under the hood for the right and left side headlights were blown. I needed some sort of light to drive home in so I looked in the manual to find a 15a fuse ( I couldnt see any extras) I ended up taking the fuse for the heated wiper element. Bad idea. When I put it in for the headlight that wasnt cut, the headlight worked fine. But now I had the Traction light on steady, the ABS light on steady, the TPMS light flashing, Airbag light steady, my AT Oil temp flashing, and my directionals/hazards didnt work. Also my shift lock was messed up so I had to remove the little tab, and unlock it that way. I drove for maybe 500 feet and pulled over because frankly I wasnt comfortable with this situation. I looked in the manual again and this time I took the fuse from the heated seats. I had to restart my car a couple of times after because the air bag light and TPMS light wouldnt go off, but they finally did. So now, paranoid me, I am wondering if everything is OK now or if I f'ed something up.

 

I replaced the other fuse, and repaired the wiring harness with shrink tubing and wrapped each wire with high temp electrical tape and now both headlights work. Shirnk tubing probably wasnt the best but it was the easiest in the dark.

 

[BDII]

That sucks

[f1anatic]

why don't you put it in gear, put a brick over the accelerator pedal and quickly jump out of the car before it plunges into the Atlantic.

[Carter]

why don't you put it in gear, put a brick over the accelerator pedal and quickly jump out of the car before it plunges into the Atlantic.

 

Hey now, this wasnt the cars fault (for once ) it was my fault for not securing the wiring harness better!

[gianspi]

Did you use the stock headlight wiring to the HID ballast or did you hook it up right to the battery?

[Carter]

Did you use the stock headlight wiring to the HID ballast or did you hook it up right to the battery?

The stock wiring it there and plugged in of course, but I also have the additional wiring harness directly to the battery to take the load off the stock wiring.

[VXCL]

The stock wiring it there and plugged in of course, but I also have the additional wiring harness directly to the battery to take the load off the stock wiring.

 

theres no additional. either you have a harness powering your ballasts via relay off oem wiring, your hooked into oem stuff directly, or your nuts and are grounding off the oem wiring and powering off the batt.

 

what ended up shorting out?

[Carter]

The stock wiring is hooked to the bulb. The ballast is hooked to the battery via the wiring harness. The wiring harness is also hooked to the bulb. Make sense now?

[BigInALegacy]

That's definitely crappy. Why did the wiper element fuse set off all those other lights?

 

 

Factory headlights: for when illegal HID retrofits go bad and don't work at all, possibly melting your intercooler

 

 

 

I think Seb doesn't like the HID's.

[hogmeat]

Stay Stock, Stay Happy.

Don't stay stock, have fun - but at your own risk!

[yamie700]

HID's: for when factory headlights burn out over and over again.

 

Fixed...

[pillboy]

I'm with Seb on this one. I think the stock headlights are more than adequate, even with my old-man, failing eyesight (which is much better than my failing hearing).

[BigInALegacy]

I dunno... I think my lows could be a little brighter, or maybe a little higher, but a bit MORE of something.

 

I ordered some Ralley H7's to replace mine when I get some free time.

[Vimy101]

your nuts and are grounding

 

I hate when that happens.