HIDs playing up

[Cloggy Saint]

Now and then when I turn the lights on I get the warning light on the check control panel. Both lights are on but the left side is significantly duller than it should be. They're 4300 50w, any ideas?

[jonny323i]

Probably the ballast on its way out but I couldn't be sure

[Cloggy Saint]

I'll swap ballasts over and see if that effects thisngs. Assuming that is the problem, would any 50w ballast be ok, are the conectors pretty much universal?

[jonny323i]

I think the connectors are the same I couldnt comment on how 100w to 50w will work

[Cloggy Saint]

I meant 50w in my original post, since edited!

[jonny323i]

Should be ok then

[Cloggy Saint]

I've decided to get a complete new kit as it doesn't cost much more than just a single ballast. Will I notice much difference if I get 35w rather than 50w?

[jonny323i]

No idea but the set I had was the 35w and seemed bright enough

[Cloggy Saint]

Ok, cheers. Any chance you can recommend a decent set from ebay? It seems most of the sellers have a quite a bit of bad feedback.

[jonny323i]

Hids direct or something like that they have an eBay site but its cheaper to go on their direct site.
I'm not using my old set if your interested I only used them for a few months before selling the car I can send them with the tshirt lol

[Cloggy Saint]

Hmmm, maybe! What rating are they and how much are you looking for them?

[Brianmoooore]

35W is more than adequate for HIDs if they are working properly. You're not trying to light into the infinite distance with dipped beams, so too bright will just cause contrast problems, leaving you less likely to see things outside of the beams, such as a bike light or a pedestrian's torch.
I recently fitted a compact ballast kit to my E39, and the first thing I noticed was that they were much more blue than the one's on all my other BMs. I initially thought that this must be down to wrongly labelled burners, and I'd been sent 6k ones instead of 4.3k.
When I came to drive the car in the dark a few days later, I also discovered that their performance wasn't up to expectations either - not much better than the halogens that they replaced.
Thought no more about it until a couple of weeks later when I brought a scrapper E36 into the workshop to relieve it of a couple of things, and noticed that its ROC 'Bosch' ballasts had both broken free from their cable tie mounts and were hanging loose, so, in a eureka moment, I decided to try them in the E39, and was rewarded with full brightness, pure white light.
I've no idea what exactly is wrong with the brand new compact ballasts, but in the bin they went.
Anyone else come across a problem like this?

[dooce]

Now and then when I turn the lights on I get the warning light on the check control panel. Both lights are on but the left side is significantly duller than it should be. They're 4300 50w, any ideas?

I am having similar problems with mine. I also have a problem with my n/s light not wanting to come on all the time, usually coming on after I push the headlight switch back in and then try it again. From reading a lot of questions about HIDs, I have ordered a CANBUS system hoping this will solve the issues I am having. It should be here soon and I'll report back. Some HID kits already come with this piece attached, so this might be of no use to you.

[Cloggy Saint]

Swapped the ballasts around but the problem stayed on the left side light. Swapped bulbs around and still the problem was on the left

[jonny323i]

I haven't got a clue about why LOL.
The ones I have are 6k 35w with slim ballasts

[Brianmoooore]

Get a volt meter on the joint between the original headlamp wiring and the feed wires to the ballasts.
Measure between earth and the yellow/x wires and between earth and the brown wires each side.

[Cloggy Saint]

Cheers, I'll try that tomorrow, what should I be seeing?

[Cloggy Saint]

Apparently the problem is the reflector in the light is knackered, probably due to water getting in there, never heard that one before but there you go. Are the individual light units interchangeable between left and right?

[Brianmoooore]

Apparently the problem is the reflector in the light is knackered, never heard that one before but there you go.

Who told you this one? One big flaw in this argument is that facelift lights (the only ones that you should be fitting HIDs to) don't actually have a reflector, or at least one that does anything other than enhance the parking light. The beam pattern/control is by courtesy of a large convex lens and a metal plate.
That aside, I fail to see any connection between bulb failure warnings and reflectors, tarnished or otherwise.

[Cloggy Saint]

Maybe it got a bit lost in translation but now you've posted this I'm guessing it's the metal plate. And to clear things up, the cc warning light only comes on when the light fails to come on (which being hids happens from time to time), it doesn't come on when the light works but is weak.

[jonny323i]

You must have a loose connection then as when mine were fitted they never failed to come on.