This has been gone over 40 or 50 times I'm sure but i just need clarification on three things:

First and foremost, on an '02 when your headlight starts to flicker and turn purple it is going to cost you lots of money. If you go to the dealership they will tell you the headlight itself is broken, the igniter is bad and that the inverter unit is faulty and that it is going to be 1k to fix it.

Screw these people. I don't have the tools, time or know how to start messing around with this issue but i know not all of those parts have failed. So you call acura and explain to them that you are not some yuppie who is about to be scammed and they respond by saying that it is just the 500$ inverter unit (the most expensive of the three) that is not working and that it will be about 700-800 bucks to fix it.

My question is after i bite the bullet and shell out the money for this blasphemous operation is it going to be the right fix or will acura call me halfway through and say they need to replace some other ludicrously expensive part.?

The light has been out for 2 months now and every time i turn on the head lights i see it try to flicker on for a quick second then go out. Does that mean it is definitely the inverter? it would seem to me that it would be the igniter failing to fully ignite the gasses or perhaps the headlight is just old...of course i really don't know what the hell i am talking about here because i do not understand how HID lights work.

i would really appreciate any input.

Thanks a lot,
J

 

proabably just needs new bulbs

the flikker and pink on startup is the normal warning sign of their demise
You can swap them left to right in the housing and tell if its bulb or major issue
Get good OE quality bulbs = phillips or osram are good stock color rating 4300k
Kaixen is good aftermarket choice 5000k or 6000k color (more blue than stock)
Excelerate sells them for about 110 per pair of HID low beams- yes you must replace in pairs
Gen 2 is at the time and age for new bulbs,they last around 2500-3000 hours of useage. the brightness increase with new bulbs will blow you away

If you have moisture behind the headlinght lens- that has to be fixed or replaced as a unit (junkyards?) or the moisture does drip out the bottem and directly onto the ballast- shorting it out

 

when you ask a price over the phone they have to guess at which parts may be dead--thats impossible and results in bad estimate--
if worse than thought. customer gets upset at increase
Only when its looked at can a diagnosis be made

 

the ballast creates a supercharge burst of electricty far beyond what the car uses.
that goes to an ignitor which sparks the gas inside a glass tube,,similar to fluoresent or neon type lighting..think gas barbeque and the gas on- hit sparker and whoosh-

Ever notice the tube ceiling lights in buildings that buzz or flikker- the end of the tube gets black...failing. HID type lights= Hi intensity Discharge

 

the only special tool to change the bulbs is a #20 Torx SECURITY bit.
a special type screwdriver style bit and it has to be the `Security` version not the regular
parts stores have it for a few dollars

 

I took it in to them and they said that they put a different bulb on there and said it failed to light up and thus the more expensive parts are needed...

I hate to sound like an untrusting jerk but i have worked at dealerships and seen lots of the scumbag tactics they use on the uninformed so i just wanted to make sure they weren't trying to slip one past me.

so the purple flicker is a sign of the bulb going out or the rest of the assembly?

i would think that if the ballast shorted out it wouldn't even flicker, it would be straight dead all the time...

 

they make it such a pain in the ass to do such minute things these days

 

I have lots of experience with this problem and I can tell you that if when you turn on your lowbeams and the one side flickers very briefly before going out it is the inverter (ballast) that has gone bad. The dealership is trying to rip you off hardcore for the part. It is a very easy process to replace it that simply involves taking off your bumper (10 minutes), removing the headlight assembly (so simple), removing the failed ballast and replacing it with a new one. I recently purchased a BRAND NEW ballast (inverter) off a respectable ebay seller for $130-140 US. The seller acquired a lot of them along with other parts when he purchased a japanese tuner shop and is trying to clear them out. Here is the link to the ballast. Order this and save yourself a couple hundred dollars at least :

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/NEW-0...Q5fAccessories

Always try here or ebay before going to the dealership for price estimates. One of the biggest ways they'll rip you off is on the HID headlight system. My local dealership wanted $700 CAD for the ballast/ignitor. Yeah, fuck that.

 

Hell yeah! thanks man, exactly what i needed. You have made my day

 

I'd still switch the bulbs first and see if it's just the bulb. Then you will know if the Stealership was correct or not.

 

He, TheMegalodon, is the man of headlight. knows exactly what is he talking about.

 

Thanks man, the reason I know what I'm talking about is because I've dealt with all of the problems the other members are bringing up. I had the condensation problem, I had my ballast die, I replaced it with an A.M. one off ebay (would not recommend), the A.M. ballast died, so I replaced it with the extra one (left the passenger side stock). I noticed that the A.M. can flicker over hard bumps so I said screw it and dropped more cash on a new oem ballast. I plan to install come spring and then replace my dead fog light ballast with the one I'm currently using in my headlights.

Overall my lights have been the biggest pain in the ass on my TL. I've spent over $400 CAD fixing the driver's side. For a reliable brand that is luxury based I'm certainly not impressed with these little problems biting us in the ass.

I.E. headlight condensation, door panel peeling, potential premature failure of ball joints, dash warping in sun causing rattling, and of course the major transmission problem which so many suffer through.

Simply ridiculous

 

You forgot about engine mounts and axle assemblies (CV joints), clock and fog switch light bulbs, mostly driver's side seat heaters (aside from being so weak, the butt becomes frozen solid by the time it starts heating), in general, trim quality is crap etc.etc