Yesterday I installed a set of HIDs in my truck and while the truck wasn't on they worked fine. As soon as I started up the truck they started to flicker then shut off. I tried it couple of times with the truck running then turn the lights on - this time they flickered like a fluorescent light that burned out.

I've never had this happen before, maybe the ballasts are bad. If you're running HID's, who's are you using? Mine are some Japanese ones called ProMax. I guess it's what happens when you cheap out. Maybe I should have spent the extra $100 and got the McColluoch's.

Any ideas what went wrong?

 

I assume the kit you purchased doesn't connect directly to the battery? The strobing is because the factory electrical system doesn't provide enough power to completely start the HID bulb.

 

So it looks like I need a relay to go from the battery to power these things?

 

How much do some HIDs for the new Ram run? I miss the HID look.

 

You're not the first to say the same about HID's. I was reading somewhere about someone else having the same problem. Might have to do with how the lights turn on automatically?

 

My GMC Sierra had automatic lights and I never had a problem with those. The kit I had for that truck was from Never Burn Out, but they went under, I got these from ShopXenon.com. I've got a call and an email in to them, hopefully I'll hear something from them tomorrow.

 

I fixed my problem. It appears that the electrical systems in Chrysler products are very sensitive to voltage changes. Since the HID ballasts use only 35 watts instead of 55 that the halogen lights use, it somehow throws the headlight voltage into disarray.

I found an item called a flicker eliminator or canceler. It just plugs between the ballast and the headlight harness.

Now I've got good lights and I found the alignment screws so now I'm a happy camper.

 

Can you post some pics? curious as to how it looks

 

Yes, pics please. And cost?

 

I'll try to post some pics tonight when I get home from work.

The whole thing cost me about $145.00:
$110 for the HID conversion kit
$30 for the flicker cancelers - 2 needed @ $15 each
$5 for the 2-sided tape to attach the ballasts.

I had 4300K lights on my last truck and they had a very slight yellow hue to them, but still white compared to regular halogen lights. This time I went with a more white color temperature of 5000K. To me, these seem a little too blue, maybe because the original lights were so orange/yellow, but still a million times better because the original lights sucked so bad. If I did it again, I'd go with the 4300k bulbs.

You can find cheaper kits out there and you can find more expensive ones out there. The bottom line is if it works for 3 years I've broken even if I was using Silverstars (those will only last for 1 year and will burn out a week of each other) I did run Silverstar Ultras in my highbeams and those look very orange in comparison to the HIDs.

The biggest problem I had was trying to remove the headlight unit, but after I read the section in the owner's manual about changing the headlight bulb, it showed a picture of a white plasic "L" shaped slide piece that you need to get at from the front wheel house liner. You need to turn the wheels in to get to the access. When you do find the white slide piece, push up on the "handle" or the bottom of the "L" of the slide piece, that will release the light housing. After that and you've removed the 2 bolts behind the grille just pull out the grille side of the light and remove it. To put everything back together just do it in reverse.

With the wire harness kit on the HIDs you won't be able to put the screw-in dust cap behind the headlight bulb access, so I had some aluminum tape I got off my air conditioning subcontractor (they sell it at Home Depot) and used that to seal off the opening and reinforced it around where the wires come out.

If I did this during the day I would have taken some pics to show the process, but I did it late in the afternoon and I was trying to beat the dark, and I did barely.

On my drive to work this morning it was so nice to see farther then 12 feet away and the beam spread is wide too. Why they don't offer HIDs as an option is beyond me. As long as the lights are aligned right they won't blind anyone and as long as you stick with a 35 watt kit (55 watt kits don't project much farther, but they seem to blind oncoming traffic, most HID sellers recommend 35's over the 55's), you shoudn't run into any problems with Johnny Law.