HID Beam Pattern

[brycewinters]

Hello everyone. This is my first time posting here, and I'm afraid it may be a bit long, so I apologize in advance. I searched and couldn't find what I was looking for, so I decided to start a new thread.

I have an 05' Prius with HID's. About two months ago I started having the problem of my driver's side headlight would just go off randomly. I found out it could be temporarily remedied by turning them off and on again. Well, it started getting more frequent so I decided to take it in. They told me it was just the bulb going out and would need to be replaced. I specifically said I had researched the problem, and asked are they sure it couldn't be a problem with some of the circuitry related to the headlights, like the HID controller. They said no with assurance. I asked if other similar problems with Priuses had been solved by just replacing the light, and they said yes. Since they never carry any bulbs in stock, i setup an appointment to have them replaced (they would replace them free of charge because they should last longer than 50k miles).

After it had been replaced I drove home (less than one minute drive). When I got ready for work a little while later (and now nighttime) I got in, and the same problem happened less than 30 seconds after turning the car on (some quality control my dealer has). The next day I went back and told them they didn't fix it. I setup another appointment for them to figure out what the problem was. A few days later, and after waiting 2 hours for them to figure it out, they came to me and said it was a problem with the HID controller. I had to hold my tongue from saying "figured that out did ya?". A few days later the part came in, I took the car, they replaced it. They called me into the service dept from the waiting room, and told me the replacement was successful, but now the headlight doesn't work at all, so they gave me a loaner. They figured from all the jostling of the bulb it had now gone bad, so they needed yet another one.

Several days later I called to see if the bulb was in. They told me the bulb had arrived, but it was the wrong bulb. Oh, and the bulb I do need, it's on backorder. A few days later they called up and told me my car was ready, and everything works now. Great! I pickup the car and before leaving the lot, watch the headlights for several minutes to see if they go off. They in fact stay on. Success!

I get back and decide to check the beam pattern. Now comes the reason I am here. From what I remember the beam pattern was extremely sharp before being taken into service. Cuttoff was almost perfectly flat, no jagged edges, even, and a little blue tint where the cutoff line is. Now, the beam pattern is jagged, there are hot spots, and the passenger side pattern doesn't even appear as though there is a difference between its low beam and high beam! I looked at the passenger side bulb and compared to the driver's side (the one that was having the problem) and the passenger side bulb is different from the driver's side. Content that I at least had two working headlights and my car back, I didn't want to go back to the dealership yet so they would spend another week figuring out how to do the job properly.

I'm now gathering evidence to present to them when I do take the car back to tell them, nicely, to fix my headlights the right way this time. If anybody can point me in the direction of a photo of unmodified prius HID beam pattern pictures, has their own, or would be kind enough to take some and upload them for me, I would be very appreciative. Here are some picutres of my beam patterns. The first two are my low beams and the second two are my high beams. Also, do they look a bit too yellow to anybody else?

[Patrick Wong]

Hi Bryce,

Although I don't have photos to share with you I wanted to comment on your query. It's hard to say much about the color of your headlamp beams since it appears that you are projecting them on a colored wood fence.

Regarding high vs. low beams, as you switch back and forth you should see the top of the light pattern move up and down while the bottom of the light pattern remains unchanged. If you don't observe this, then this is evidence that the motor that moves the mirror up & down (in order to produce the high vs. low beams) is not working.

[brycewinters]

I've checked to see if the shield moves back and forth when going from low to high beams, and when set to high beams both shields move backwards as they are supposed to. Yet, the passenger side beam pattern remains almost unchanged.

[lenjack]

My first thought was they couldn't make the HID's work, so they switched you to halogen, but on second thought, this is probably impossible.

[brycewinters]

When first turned on the lights are much more blue than they are after a few seconds of operation, so they are still HID's. And yes, it is impossible to just plug halogens into a HID system; they would fry instantly.