Hi, last night as I was about to take some people home and I noticed my headlights were out. My city lights work but neither my low beams or high beams are working. I do have HIDs installed and never had any type of problem with my headlights not working. In the past, when my low beams went out, I could always flip my high beams on as a back up, but now that is not the case. When I turn on my low beams I can see the bulbs flicker and want to turn on but they don't. I was looking through the fuses in the engine bay and nothing specifically says "headlight" and all i'm seeing are fog lamps, illumination, but nothing that clearly says head lights.

Does anyone know which fuse is for the headlight bulbs and/or what might be the reason for this happening out of nowhere? Thanks in advance.

 

If the bulbs are flickering, there's probably power there, but check fuse #32 (not sure if that's correct though).

HIDs are nothing but trouble.

 

This is exactly the type of problem that makes me want to avoid HIDs, attractive as they are. The underside of your fuse box lid should be a "map" of what all the fuses do. You should have a fuse for the left headlight and one for the right headlight, if memory serves.

What brand/where did you buy the HIDs? Also, have you tried disconnecting the battery and reconnecting it?

Also, NEVER use high beams as a backup unless you are out in the country away from other cars/people. All you do is **** others off and possibly get yourself pulled over for high beams in town. Cop will tell you the same thing, no high beams in town. If you are in the city, your fog lights should be adequate in an emergency. If you get pulled over for just fog lights on, explain to the officer that your headlights won't turn on and you don't know why, and that you plan on getting them fixed. He should let you off with a warning.

 

I have heard HID's are issue ridden, unless you get the Relay Harness. So I just went HID Fogs, Plug and play.

What do you mean by city lights? You mean Daytime Running Lights (Headlights that are always on when the truck is running, Unless you push down the parking brake)

 

He might be talking about his parking/ marker lights.

 

Thanks everyone. And yes I was just referring to those amber lights on the headlights. I checked fuse 30/32 and those were all good so I ditched the HIDs and put the stock bulbs back on and voila, all is good. Im officially done with HIDs... Had problems with them on my wife's Honda Fit recently too. I am going to stop investing in those because ive gone through so many and they always fail with 1/4 the life of the regular halogens.

 

Im running HID Fogs without any issues, Other then one of my fogs filled 1/2 with water haah HID was working fine in it, then one day stopped, then days later came back on. Still works to.

I stayed away from HID Headlights because of the issues ive heard with them, and I also didnt want to add the Relay harness either.

 

HID's cn be run in the fogs, plug and play. HID's in the main housings are nothing but trouble. I tried them and never could get them to work, relays, etc. Honestly, on mine, the HID's ion the fogs were the best improvement I found.

 

From your description I would say that you have power going to the circuit, but you should use a multi-meter to track down the source of your problem. Adding HIDs isn't always just a quick add-on, many OEM harnesses, including relays, aren't robust enough to take on the job of controlling HIDs. Your multimeter should be able to tell you if the problem lies on the "light" side or the harness side, since the lights flicker, there is some power getting through, but you need to find what's partially broken. You may also need to apply a load onto the circuit to be able to check the output at the headlight socket - you can attach a normal headlight to see how that lights up. If this doesn't light, I'd look at the relay.

When you find the problem, I'd recommend going back to normal headlights until you decide to upgrade your harness. If you need a higher power relay, don't just change the OEM relay to a higher power one, the plug & associated wires are all rated for the current handling value of the OEM relay. You can use the OEM circuit to power an additional harness which would include another relay and probably a direct connection to the battery as well.