Tony Curtis

OEM Igniter

This is the bottom piece of the igniter that I've been using for a few years before my headlight problems occured. It has 4 wires. Could one of these 4 wires be a ground??
Aftermarket Igniter

This is the bottom piece of an aftermarket igniter that I recently purchased from Amazon. It has 3 wires and a ground.
My problem is that I don't know if I could use the aftermarket igniter in place of my OEM igniter because of the 3 wires that it has and a ground wire that I see no slot for on the ballast nor headlamp. Can I use this igniter even if I dont connect the ground wire? Thanks a ton.

TheSauceBoss

I'm pretty sure you need to ground it either way. Is there a pin in that open slot on your aftermarket harness? I would think you could cut the aftermarket ground and mount it in the connector pin, just like the OEM ballast (or harness, I'm not sure of the correct term) is already set up.

Don't quote me on that, but that's just personally what I would try to do. I'd wait for someone who has aftermarket igniters to provide their input here first though.

Tony Curtis

Thanks for the reply. No, there isnt a pin there. On the site I got it from, all it shows is the igniter connected to the balladt with that ground loose

Tony Curtis

I went ahead and used the aftermarket igniters, now my headlight problems are out of here. Everything is working fine except there is a small delay in the drivers side. Now since I know that my igniters were the problem and not my ballast no wiring, I'm gonna order the OEM igniters.

Thanks a mega for the reply SauceBoss

Jackass

Don't even know what you are updating? Maybe post updates within the original thread?

Kevin17112

Opposite thing happened to me, I recently replaced the ballast and igniter with aftermarket unit on my 08 TL and the one I bought (supposed to be for 06-08 TL) didn't have the separate ground wire like my OEM did, I put it in anyway and it's been working fine so far.. I don't know if 04 TL has the same ground connector as the 08 TL, so make sure you bought that unit for your specific model.

TheSauceBoss

I think he's referencing this https://acurazine.com/forums/3g-tl-p...-issue-958850/

On this forum, it's common practice to just reply to your original thread if you solve an issue/have questions/update/etc. It will bump it to the top of the feed so most all users will see it again (instead of creating a whole new post).

Glad it worked out though!

thoiboi

Threads merged.

Tony Curtis

How long have you been using the aftermarket igniter for or are you still using it? I'm also gonna go ahead and get the OEM igniter so I could be sure that no electrical problems will occur in the future

Sorry about that, guys. I hit reply in this thread, then made a mistake by making a new thread

Kevin17112

It's been about 3 weeks now and working fine. Let me correct what I said earlier, the unit I bought from claimed to be OEM. This what I bought:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-2006-2007-2008-ACURA-TL-TL-Type-S-Factory-OEM-HID-XENON-BALLAST-IGNITER-/162031775959?fits=Year%3A2008%7CMake%3AAcura%7CMod el%3ATL&hash=item25b9d8b0d7:g:5gEAAOSwTA9X9uw5&vxp =mtr

Sean King

I didn't want to start a new thread, plus i'm a noob to the forum, but thought this may be related to my issue. I just bout my '04 TL, and love it. However when I turn my headlights on, only my passenger HID comes on. Drivers side never does. I'm new to Acura's and HIDs, but have been researching online a bit. Any recommendations or advice to where I should start my trouble shooting? Thinking its the ballast, but not sure.

Thanks again. A lot of great info here.

thoiboi

likely ballast or bulb. Try replacing bulb first but i'm leaning towards ballast. If it was the bulb, it would have had a telltale sign of turning pink before dying. The best way to troubleshoot prior to buying parts is to just switch parts from left to right of the car to rule out what is the problematic part.

Kevin17112

I also think it's the ballast/igniter but the first thing I'd diagnose is the fuse that is located in the fuse box under the hood.