It seems like every month or two i burn out a headlight(usually the pass side). Any ideas on why? I do drive with my headlights on a lot and drive on rough gravel roads daily. Could this be a cause? I will eventually be going with clear headlights and HID's and don't want this to happen with HID's

 

A poor ground will cause that. So will an intermittent power lead, but they're not as common a failure... though by now you might have spread the pins in the connector.

Touching the glass envelope of the lamp during installation will cause rapid failure, too.

 

how does touching the glass cause a failure? heat? seems like it would just cook off any skin oil and right itself.

if touched, can it be cleaned with alcohol?

 

i second the whole dont touch the bulb with your hands thing...Not really sure of the actual explanation but i have heard it for years. also check for a bad ground i know that will burn bulbs out quicker.

 

I always where gloves when installing them, so its not the touching it thats the issue. Whats my best way to check for a bad ground?

 

The reason they don't want you to touch the glass is.... your fingers leave deposits on the glass, and the bulbs run at rather high temps...... with the containments your fingers leave, it alters the rate at which the glass expands/contracts...... so, the bulb breaks. Ooops.

Check the wires at the headlights, and follow the harness where it leads. Under normal circumstances, I would say the ground will be up near the headlight somewhere, and fairly easy to find...... However, dodge tends to have switches provide a ground path, to an already powered circuit, rather than providing power, to grounded circuit.......

 

HeyYou is right, I've had some bulbs fail before and when I pulled the bulb, there was a brown burn on the glass the perfect size/shape of my finger tip where I hadn't realized I touched it. Not necessarily always going to have that obvious of a culprit though.

Yes, cleaning them with alcohol is recommended if you think you accidentally touched the bulb. Not sure how cold it is over in Montana, but I'm assuming its at least as cold as it is here (-2 with -20 wind chill) right now, and cold is also hard on bulbs.

 

Hmm maybe its the cold that we get here...

 

I hope it's your cold weather or bad ground, but I found that I had an issue with moisture getting in my housing and killing my bulbs.
While I could spend all day drying out with a hair dryer, I ended up drilling a couple of holes in the bottom of my housing to keep things "aired out"
Haven't had an issue since.

 

housing is staying dry, so im guessing its the cold. What about vibrations?(rough gravel roads, snow packed in wheels on highway)