My left headlight always goes out after a brief moment of working. The bulb is pretty new. I replaced the ballast and still won't work. Actually flickers now before going out. With the old ballast it would go out like a switch. Any suggestions what it could be? Thanks.

 

OEM ballast or?

 

Yes, oem. And the newer 06 ballast looks to be in much better shape than the 05 one I took out but the headlight actually goes out sooner now and it'll flicker before shutting off

 

Did you replace the igniter as well?

 

Just the ballast.

 

Replace the igniter

 

I just replaced the ignitor. The light is still going out.

 

Any chance you got a bad ballast? is it new or used?

 

It's possible but very unlikely. Assuming the bulb, ballast, and ignitor is good; what else is there to check?

 

Used but a known working one

 

Bad ground?

 

Can you swap the ballasts on each side of the vehicle? If the other side starts going out, you'll have narrowed down which is the problem part.

 

I just tried swapping ballasts and low and behold.. the same driver side headlight goes out even with the passenger side ballast that has always worked. I'm out of ideas. I really don't want to spend money but I'm about to let the pros look at it.

 

I just swapped ballasts. The same side headlight is still failing.

 

Did you swap ignitors too?

 

Yes

 

Then it sounds like it may be issues with the wiring on the side of the car. Or a bad ground that was alluded to earlier. Was this car in a front end accident by chance? This is where things get tricky if it isn't as simple as the ballast/bulb/ignitor.

 

I must've taken the bumper and headlights apart 4 times in the past week and half. Swapping ignitors, replacing ballasts, swapping ballasts. I'm getting tired of it. I miss my '95 civic cx. I think I need to go buy it back.

 

I'm thinking a bad ground now. Hopefully the tech can find it and doesn't have to rip the car apart. It's funny though that you mentioned front end accident because it was in a slow 5-10 mph crash where the only damage was a gash to the bumper but it was closer to the other side and was about 3 years ago.

 

Could anyone show me where the headlights ground to? Or if someone with a manual can post a diagram, that would be awesome. 😎

 

Follow the wires They'll be grounded to some part of the body near the headlights

 

The ground near the headlights seem fine. I wanted to know where the other grounds are. The ones that may affect the headlight wiring

 

Got the car back from the tech. The problem was the actual bulb. Sometimes itll work a good 20 minutes or so but the problem renains the bulb for why it's going out. I never woulda thought because of how it seemed to work fine when it was on. Thanks for the help, guys. Gonna go replace that bulb now.