Hello fello Tlers.
I am the owner of a satin silver 2003 TL-S.
About a month a go i am thinking the seal broke for the headlights. water has seeped into it and after it rained here in san diego a couple of times my HID headlight burned out. I have no idea why this happened. Ne ways i dont know how to go about this problem do i have to replace everything including the whole headlight case it's self or can i change the bulb and reseal it?

if anyone has ran into this problem please let me know what i can do or where i can find the parts for cheap.

or if someone has a spare kit for the drivers side let me know.

thanks

j76

email- j4790@hotmail.com

 

this is very common- see the thread on headlight clearing for details
You can put the housing in the oven- heat old seal and remove- clean- apply new sealand and bake again
Or buy a headlight on the Private Sales threads here or a set on the bay
Make sure used ones have all the mounting tabs intact

Then seal where the wires go into the housing to water doesnt short out the ballast.
One thing leads to another on this job

Bulbs- Excelerate has pairs of great bulbs for $150, sometimes bay has Phillips brand

 

ur going to need a new ballast as well...unfortunately

 

time to look in the Private Sales section- click Off Topic link at top of any azine page
or call the local junkyard- now called auto recyclers- if they dont have one- they have a network to all the other places and will do a search for you, and have it shipped from anywhere to anywhere.

 

Y?

 

the water usually shorts out the ballast...ive been through at least 8 of them...all but one was shorted out due to moisture in the headlight...i waterproofed it by putting sum silicone sealnt on the plug & socket where the igniter plugs into the ballast...ive been trying to refurbish a few that went bad but the water damage is pretty substantial..i know water doesnt kill them 100% of the time, so he should probably swap bulbs to see if its the bulbs 1st then i would try the ballasts...

 

i shouldve reworded fixed

 

Hey guys. I'm having a similar issue. My driver side headlight went out on me a few weeks ago. I finally got around to swap the bulbs around and the driver side is still out. So does that mean its the ballast I need to replace? If so, where can I find one?

 

from what I've been hearing, yes that is the case. If you switched bulbs and still does not work, then the ballast would be the next best bet.

also as a note, same problem with condensation into a broken seal just happened to me over the weekend, so I'm in the process of buying new bulbs and praying that they'll work so I won't have to worry about the ballast.

 

by the way, is there a temporary solution for the seal because it's about to rain...

 

i would sell my pair of OEM 02-03 headlights but i plan on doing some other work to it.

 

If your other headlight is working fine, I would test the ballast and the bulb with that one first to determine what the actual problem is. You don't want to buy new bulbs and a ballast if only one of them is bad.

 

go get sume clear silicone sealant and put the silicone where the igniter plugs into the ballast...that will keep the ballast from going bad...otherwise u need to reseal that headlight

 

Alright I'm planning to buy the ballast on ebay. Does anyone know the part number for a 02' TL type s?

 

Not necessarily, if the headlight seal is broken elsewhere moisture can still get into the headlight and short the bulb, the more voltage you have the easier for it is for it jump from source to ground, add a little water vapor and you can short it out from inside. Xenons use a high of voltage when they just power up, its at this time that you can have arc and then a dead ballast.

 

^^^ i didnt say it couldnt short out the bulb but seeing as tho bulbs arent really expensive compared to the $500 ballast from acura i was just trying to give hima quick fix b4 it rained...the best thing to do would be to take apart the headlight and reseal...for no problems watsoever

 

How many hours is it until you can actually open up the hid and replace the bulb? By looking through the user manual, it just states that "you should not attempt to examine or change a low beam headlight bulb yourself. If a low beam headlight bulb fails, take the car to your dealer to have it replaced". I've heard about 8 hours, is that true?

 

I dont know how much truth there is to that but I havent waited at all. I have turned on the bulbs for testing and uninstalled the whole system 5 minutes later. I do undo the ballast form the power supply before I attempt to do anything with the HID system. You wana be sure you do not touch that bulb though, because if you get grease from your hand on that bulb and then turn it on it will heat up and possibly explode. Just make sure you unplug the ballast before you attempt anything.

 

I don't know if this helps but I found out that for me this part was broken.

7 33119-S0K-A10 CONTROL UNIT ASSY.

http://www.acuraautomotiveparts.org/acura/jsp/mws/prddisplay.jsp?inputstate=5&catcgry1=TL&catcgry2=2 003&catcgry3=4DR+TL&catcgry4=KA5AT&catcgry5=HEADLI GHT+('02-'03)&ListAll=All&vinsrch=no&systemcomp=List%20All& vinnoT=&trim=&trans=&view=normal

I asked the dealership about the seal and they do not reseal the headlight however they normally just replace the entire headlight unit...is that normal?

 

Yes. We dont fix headlights that have water in them. We replace them.

 

Is this the correct ballast for a 02' Acura TL? http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...link:middle:us

 

its for a newer model Tl and TSX but will work fine...not completely sure if it will bolt right up to the headlight tho...looks like it would

 

I am pretty sure that is NOT it. The alignment of the bolt holes does not seem to be the same as mine (02 TL-S) from what I remember. I'll see if I can find a pic to make sure though.

 

Here are the only pics that I could find after searching tons of threads. These are off a 02 TL-S. I don't know if that is the part number in the lower right hand corner, but if it is they don't match.

https://acurazine.com/forums/showthr...hlight=ballast