I bought some 6000k Kiaxens a few weeks ago and got around to installing them today. When I opened my hood this is what I found.





I started getting pissed. Im a noob and Ive never seen an HID kit before, but im pretty sure these arnt it. I bought the car used about 2 years ago and from what I see, the HIDs must have been stolen and a cheap job was done for headlights. The electrical taped copper wire even came apart on the left bulb when I took them out. Im emailing the dealer after this even though it might not help. Any advice? Then again im a noob and I might be wrong and just need different connectors, just correct me if I am. thanks

 

Are those your lowbeams (not highbeams)? If so those aren't even HID, they're crappy halogen bulbs.

 

Those are my low beams. I replaced one side with halogen about a year ago and that was before I learned more about my car on Azine. I checked today on the other side and noticed they were halogen too.

 

you must have never seen HId's before....

 

Did you buy it from the dealer?

 

Oh man, that is one sorry ass cover up for front end damage...that is a sorry ass attempt at hiding some obvious issue. My guess, your car may have previously been in a flood or had an accident and someone didn't have the money or insurance to pay for the complete headlight electrical system that includes the ballasts, bulbs and igniters.....damn, that sux

 

or someone stole the
HID's and replaced it with those when they sold the car

 

Damn this is a unfortunate situation. I hope you get it all sorted out.

You removed the center bulbs right? The bulbs closer to the center of your car are your fogs (non-HIDs). The outer most one is your signal bulb but you probably already knew that.

 

^haha, this is the 2nd gen section man we dont have fogs in our headlights. they are in the bumper for us

 

Here's a pic from when I pulled my blown bulb

 

Shit man, this new setup is f'in with me. Sorry buddy!

 

damn thats pretty ghetto

 

look if you bought it from a dealer in the last two to four years you still have a breach of contract (time depending on state, not legal advice your state may be less than one year or more than 4 years please seek advice of an attorney in your state) if he advertised either on the website (which has prob been taken down cuz its sold) or on the sticker/sales ticket that its HID. First of all you are a complete idiot (just as far as HID goes sorry i am sure you are a smart person) if you didnt know HID from yellow ass or plain white bulbs. But if you dont have a sticker or ticket for HID you are shit out of luck for breach of contract. If your purchase sticker/ticker states HID bulbs you should call the dealer and tell him you want to resolve this and if he says no you could file in small claims, but honestly you still may not be able to collect in your state even with a judgment. The best bet is to go to several ricer shops in your area, ask them what you need to get hid then order it from excelerate and either install it yourself or like me, pay the $75 to get it installed. Sucks for you, i feel your pain, i bought a 02 audi, didnt think it had HID, then looked at the sticker and they claimed HID, I sent a demand letter to the dealership and ended up getting $500 back. Helps being an attorney, but in your case I would just be glad you got a TL, the best car on earth. (did I mention i owned a 97 1st gen and am biased)

 

Wow. I can't believe someone would even do that. I am amazed too that they were able to remove the wiring and still get a halogen to work. At this point if you can't get the dealer to get you the factory HID's you would have to buy a HID conversion kit b/c you will need ballasts (and ignitors) and HID bulbs. However, the stock headlight housing is set up for a D2R bulb so what halogen bulb did they even use to fit in that housing?

 

Yea I bought it from a dealer on Ebay ( young and dumb back then I guess ). It actually looks alot worse in person....lol. The first time I popped my hood (a long time ago) I was thinking those looked like shitty ass wires all over the place. And Excelerate, I already have your bulbs and already messaged you about the other replacements. I havent really checked the housing but the bulb you see in the picture is identical to the left bulb that came with the car. It fits into the housing and a little metal wire/clip secure it in place <<<<----Does everyone else have that also? This is starting to make me think what is wrong with my car that I dont know about. But, this is the message I sent to the dealer

Dear legendauto2003,

I have a problem here. I bought an 03 Acura TL from you on Nov of 06. I wanted to change the low beams so I bought a pair of $150 HID replacement bulbs. When I opened the hood today I notice I didnt have HIDs as advertised when I bought the car. The wires were cut and were taped back together with electrical tape. There was no ballast for the HID and it was replaced with cheap halogens. If I was to buy a new ballast it would cost $300. Hopefully we can resolve this problem. Thanks

Im just waiting for a reply. Im not really sure if HIDs were advertise when I bought the car, but this is what Im going to state for now because Im 100% sure he didnt mention that they werent there. For now, Im going the nice route and I hope it will be resolved without me getting agressive.

 

Good luck with that one. Not likely to get anything after almost 2 years.

 

man. that's f'd up.

You should get those HIDS regardless because the car comes with them.

WTF were they thinking?

Hope you get this resolved.

 

Good Luck! That's messed up that a dealer would do that, but it sucks that you missed that. Hope that gets resolved and if it doesn't. Good Luck with the install

 

damn! thats jacked up. if you cant get the seller to help you out, find out his name, look up his personal info., find the guy in the street and shoot him in the foot. oh! and take all the cash hes carrying with him.

 

EEESh, thats messed up, but I would have picked that up the instant I turned the headlights on. I guess you just didn't know the difference back then. It looks like a 9004 bulb that that used, but I'm not sure.

 

Look at my pic and the bulb itself connects to the little black thing. That is the thing that gets clipped to the back of the headlight housing. The cylindrical bigger black piece screws on behind that covering everything up.

 

the whole time I just thought my lights had changed yellow over time

 

The thing the bulb connects to is the igniter, which runs to a ballast, which were cut away. they also cut out the stock connector which attaches to the ballast. When you replace the ballasts, you'll either have to scab the connectors from a junkyard or cut the lines and properly hard wire them. I have a picture of the ballasts and igniters and how they got together. Once I figure out how to upload it, I'll post again.

 

Here's the parts and components of a 99-01 RL/TL ballast setup (no bulb) and roughly how they go together.