Headlight problem

[cephas]

Mine is a 06 and the same problem on the passenger side HID light.
Nothing we can do about it?
It is a well known problem and Toyota won't do anything about it? A recall?

[jrmason]

Hmmmm....

So far so good. I swapped the bulbs from side to side to see if the problem continues. Well it's been a week or so and the lights have been working fine on both sides. I wonder if it is a bad connection on the bulb itself or alittle corrosion. I cleaned the bulb contacts before re-installing. I didn't clean the socket since it was recessed and I didn't have any Deoxit handy.

I guess we'll see..

Jon

[timg]

Add me to the list of people with the headlight issue. My problem is with the driver's side headlight.

[timg]

Made an appointment with my dealer for tomorrow. I gave them some of the case #'s from the Priusonline thread and I printed out this thread and the one from PO to bring in. I am out of warranty so I'm thinking it's going to cost me a lot of money to be able to drive at night with working headlights.

Ugh..

[RNE10RN]

Hi - I have a 2004, and the driver's side headlight was intermittent in the fall 2007. It was never frequent enough that I thought it was worth the $350 bulb plus labor, and the local Toyota dealership could not diagnose it because they never saw it off. I did replace the constantly off passenger side headlight at about 100,000 miles - did it ourselves. Finally in Jan 08 after leaving from a routine service appt, it was OFF. They diagnosed that I needed to replace the headlight bulb and the headlight module ($400), plus labor. All of a sudden they said "lots" of Prius have this problem. I replaced the module and NOT the bulb despite heavy pressure from the service department. It worked fine for almost 3 months. Now the headlight is intermittent again - if I turn the lights off then back on - it works. Grrrrrr.

[jrmason]

Hi,

I had swapped the HID Bulb from the intermittant passenger side to the driver side. The problem seemed to go away until the other day. I noticed the driver side bulb out now. (remember it was on the pass side) I brought it to Toyota and they replaced the bulb under warranty. They didn't need to see it out they took my word for it that it was intermittant. So far so good. I'll let you know it my troubles continue.


Jon

[windstrings]

I think the bulbs Toyota used in certain lots were bad and they won't admit it.
Swapping the bulbs around and the problem follows the bulb seems to make that obvious.
HID bulbs are not created equal.

Even if it is corrosion issues with the terminals, that should be obvious when visualizing the bulb.

I think its an internal heat breakdown with resistance somewhere.

Turning on and off, hits the bulb with the initial high voltage from the ballast to overcome the resistance until it settles down again.

Sounds like its not the ballast, but the bulb.

[windstrings]

Originally Posted by lsmike

All us (bad english) out of warranty guys should be aware that one of some dealers scams is to charge "diagnostic" service time for things like this. Thus when we go in and ask them to solve a problem, or they have to get a reading from Toyota on an issue such as this (that can take days) we won't get our car back until the diag service is paid.

So beware and ask your service writer, who is on a commission.........mike

Could all be a matter of how your phrase the question....
If you say.. "check everything out to see if there are any grounding issues etc".. they may charge you a fee to do that.

On the other hand, if you say... my light is going off intermittently.. fix it.
Its there problem as to how to fix it... some will replace only the bulb and cross thier fingers, others do the whole light assembly.

The choice possibly depends on how much they think they will get reimbursed from Toyota to do the work.

In todays world.. there are few true mechanics left that can diagnose and fix a problem... but there are many who can replace parts till it finally works, at the expense of the customer or warranty.

The former is tedious, requires real know how, and takes allot of time with little payback financially, the latter is easy with much more profit involved since their time is freed up to work on other things and they often make profit just on the parts.

[windstrings]

Oh, and since my last post... my wifes 2006 prius "bought in the same month" has turned up with the exact same problem!... we both have two warning tickets from a police officer to prove it!

[CarolinaJim]

Just to gauge how my toyota place treats the problem. The smallest guy in the shop replaced the driver's side bulb in the parking lot...the whole thing from driving up to leaving took about 30 minutes.

No troubleshooting, diagnosis etc...they just changed the bulb.