Mancubus

6 weeks ago I purchased and installed an H7 HID kit for my A4 which has worked flawlessly up until about 2 weeks ago when I noticed that my passenger side light was not turning on. I did the regular things like turn the lights on and off to try and trigger the ballast but it had no effect. The next day when I went to test the light it turned on. I went for a short drive with the lights on and then turned the car off and back on again and the lights didn't turn on. At first I thought it was a bad ballast and/or bulb but I switched ballasts and bulbs with the driver's side and verified the the ballast and bulbs are working fine. When I connected a halogen bulb at the time when I could not get the HID to work on the passenger side the light turns on so I know it's receiving power. I drove with the Halogen lights installed for a week and did not experience any flickering or power up issues with them installed.

This weekend I re-installed the HID's in the car and made sure I switched the ballasts from their previous location. On my first drive the lights turned on but after I parked the car and started it again the passenger side light did not ignite but after driving for a bit I noticed that the light did turn off and on a few times during my trip.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I need to do next to get to the bottom of this? What's perplexing is that it worked flawlessly until now and nothing has changed except for the weather.

Sorry about the length.

TIA.

Mancubus

Is your problem on the same side as well or both sides?

WJM

Quote from article...

Voltage Issues

Many people, including myself have gotten voltage spikes/drains when activating the xenons. My stereo would enter into safe mode, and my warning lights on the dash would flash momentarily. My solution was to create localized grounds for the xenon ballasts. I purchased large automotive grade wire (12 gauge I believe) from my local car parts store. I also purchased two female spade connectors and two ring connectors. I ran the wire into the housing and out to the front bolt on the fender. I ran the line up through the hole (see pic) and placed the ring connector under the bolt shown. I tried to minimize the wire length for both sides, so I cut the wire down before attaching the ring connector. I wasn't sure that it was going to work but it did.

Mancubus

I am not experiencing any other electrical anomalies. My voltage is at a rock solid 14 volts at all times even with all electrical devices turned on (heated seats, rear fog, defroster, A/C). At this point I'm interested in trying anything to figure this out.

Is that your tech article? I'm a little confused as to where you attached the ground wire on the headlight side of things. Could you clarify that a little more?

Thanks.

WJM

click the link in my sig... and go to the bottom of the article. I show a pic of the fender screws I attached to.

Whenever I get/had spotty ignition of the lamps, or flicker, it was usually a sign that my ground had come loose.

You won't see anything on your voltage gauge. It is such a sudden (millisecond) draw demand, it will not register.

Mancubus

My ballasts are McCulloch purchased from an Ebay seller located in HK

Mancubus

I'm fairly clear on how you connected the ground to the car body, I'm just unsure how you wired the ground at the ballast. I'm thinking that instead of plugging the negative/ground male spade into the H7 socket, you connected your ground wire to the -ve wire on the ballast input and then grounded that to the car body. Is this correct?

Here's a crude jpg to give you an idea of what I believe is what you did.

<img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/8799/hid_wiring.jpg">

WJM

the factory H7 connector has two female spade receptacles in it. One is the + signal, the other is the ground line (brown and black wires if memory serves)

I did exactly what you showed... instead of using the factory harness as the ground wire, I made a small one, and used a female spade connector to attach to the ballast line.

I can take some pics this evening if that would help...but you got it.

Mancubus

I can't stand driving with one headlight although 1 HID is MUCH brighter than 2 Halogens.

WJM

no problemo... it should if not check back in