Poll: Has your HID headlamp gone out?

There are already 34 pages on this thread alone "to date" about this problem.

Cars built in the year of 2006 appear to have the most problems.
I would like to take a survey that compiles just how widespread this problem is.

 

Hit "refresh" again and see if its not at the top of the page.

 

Sorry Tom... I thought about including that category, but I thought it may confuse the significance of the results... because next week, if one of your lights go out, you would then fit one of the categories and would add to the list of folks with problems...
there hasn't been enough miles yet to really assess much if you haven't had problems but are still under 50K.

I'm not very good at spreadsheets, but if we get enough info, maybe we could make a graph to see when they go out typically.

The part of this equation thats not included is the vin #'s or date of the make of the cars to pin down where the problem may lie... at least this will get in the ballpark and we may find out if Toyota has fixed the problem or not. Everyone who owns a 2008 most likely has not logged enough miles to determine either.

 

Thats who I bought mine from.... I hope you got D4R's for the 2006.

 

You could be right.... This is my first poll... but I wanted to also know if there are folks who have "not" had problems who have mature miles on their cars to ascertain whether this was an absolute global problem or whether hit and miss or is it based on date of make.

There is still some confusion as to whether this problem is due to an early immature generation 1 version of the D4R bulb that "I believe" was not released till 2006, or whether its more than that such as older style ballast that was used for other type bulbs (D2Rs?) "2003 - 2005" that are now being used for the D4R and are maybe not compatible.

Somewhere, there appears to be an overlap of technology that is trying to marriage with incompatible parts.

 

The highbeam is merely a mirror device that "moves" so the light is deflected differently.... have someone hit the highbeam while your standing outside watching it... you only have "one" bulb in each assembly.

As far as the bulb... I have a handheld HID light and I"ve played with the ballast power adjustment on it..... if the power is brought too low, the light will simply drop out, or even flicker on and off very fast like a strobe, and I've also seen where the brightness goes from bright to half bright and back again without furthur manipulation of input power.... however, keep in mind I was playing with the power and sometimes the pods have bad spots as they are not meant to be turned on a regular basis.

I said that to say, it "could" be the bulb, but usually once they go off, it takes a restrike to get them going again and they just don't come back on by themselves once they have cooled off because another high voltage blast from the ballast is needed to refire them.
Second there could be a bad spot on the power pod of the ballast making it inconsistent in its power output, but I think that is far less likely.

I would keep watching it... pay attention everytime you pull up close to someone to see if there is a reflection of both lights off the bumper of the car in front of you.. or maybe when you corner at low speeds you can take note of both lights passing across road signs, trees, and or telephone poles.

I have a feeling you will start seeing more and more frequency of problems.
It may take a few more weeks to note, but I bet within a month you will have more frequency of problems.

I would always place first blame on the bulbs as you will likely want them replaced regardless if the problem is something else anyway.
If you can reproduce the problem, you can take it to the dealer and see what they do.
If you can't reproduce the problem and still want to take it to the dealer, take a picture with your license plate visible... "maybe a daytime shot if needed, or use a force a flash shot" although they know you could disconnect a bulb and simulate a problem, I doubt they will assume there would be any motivation to do such an act.