Broken HID, replace bulb or ballast
 

hey,
Its been nearly a year and my hid on one side finally gave out. I need to fix this problem but im not sure whether i should be changing my bulb or my ballast... how can one tell?

thanks

plug the working bulb into the "broken hid"

should be able to tell if it is the ballast or bulb. my guess is the bulb.

I'v never had an HID bulb burnt out on me.
I'v had 2 ballasts go though.
Just swap the bulbs and you'll know right away.

Not to threadjack, but I have 2 good ballasts and 2 burnt out bulbs. Where can I get replacement bulbs that fit my ballasts? The kits are from DDM tuning, driving without hid's sucks! I haven't found a definitive answer as to what to do and DDMtuning doesn't list bulbs by themselves :(

Is your bulb as "rebased" one or standard D2R/S ones? If it is the later ones you can just get any D2R or S bulbs. If not you have to contact your seller and get the rebased one.. though I suspect they are all the same too.

I find ballasts life especially in the retrofit situation depends on the age of the car (the more electric noise generated, the shorter the ballast life will be). I ideally one would test out the existing electrical system, from alternator to battery, ground etc.. then wire the lights directly from the battery.

here's what they look like, photos off my berry:



What do you think I can do? The bulbs said 9006 Hb4, whatever that means.

Get a 9006 rebased bulb.

If you don't know what 9006 means, you shouldn't be messing with your lighting system.

9006 is my bulb size :concentrate: I was WTF-ing hb4, but I realize now it's another name for 9006.