Mancubus

I just came back from lunch and of course the lights were not working again. When I re-installed the HID's this weekend I decided to move my silverstars to the highbeam location from the lows. I remember after I started up the car the first time and the HID's were working I did a check to see if the high beams were not and the beam on the passenger side did not turn on. At the time I was happy that the HID was on so I didn't really think anything much about it except that I most likely forgot to connect the connector to the back of the bulb. Today when I was trying to get the passenger side HID to turn on I tried the highbeams and low and behold they are working on both sides. This leads me to believe that there is something fishy going on with the wiring on that side of the car. I'm using Valeo E-codes and I know the previous owner who did the installation himself. I'm thinking that there is likely some type of wiring issue on that side of the car that is the cause of my problems. I'm going to try the seperate ground as well as test the voltage on that side of the car to make sure it's getting the proper 12v at all time though the peanut bulb in my e-codes has always worked.

WJM

they charge up and do a quick dump current to *IGNITE* the HIDS if the HIDS don't ignite the 1st time, they will not try to reignite...

another way to look at it is if they don't come on and stay on, just toggle the light switch and it will try to ignite them again. The local ground helps with the current flow (much like freeing up back pressure) and thus helps to ignite the lights. Your flashing the highs, basically provided a momentary current break, which reset the ignition process

Mancubus

I went back and checked my ballasts. It seems I had the serial numbers mixed up so I wrote them down and confirmed and connected them as they were before. For a week I drove with them connected and only the passenger side would have problems, i.e. not igniting when turned on, flickering or turning on well into my drive.

I then switched the ballasts but kept the bulbs in place. The problem then moved over to the driver side and the passenger side is now stable. I created the local ground and ran it exactly as you stated and the ballast performs the same. Turns on sometimes right away, sometimes it turns on later or it fails to turn on at all. It seems clear to me that the ballast is the point of failure here. Am I missing something?

Thanks.