Hello all,
Im having a huge issue with my headlights. They are SUPER dim. My factory fog lights output more light onto the road than my lowbeams or high beams. I have 06-08 fogs installed in my lower grille too, and the combination of all 6 lights (factory low's, factory fogs, installed lower fogs) is still an awful amount of light on the road. I get into either of my parents 2010 subarus and the light on the road is just absolutely amazing, even though the lights on the TL are known to be "some of the best factory headlights ever made."
My cutoff is focused pretty well, band my headlights are aimed well. I cleared the headlights very recently, and one light went out so I replaced both with morimoto bulbs. I had Sylvania OSRAM bulbs in there before and they didn't put out any more light than the morimoto ones. Could my ballasts be bad? When I put my highbeams on, the light output seems great, except that the high beams light pretty much shoot into the sky. The trees above the road are super clear, but the light on the road ahead of me isn't enough to really see anything. My headlights are also aimed properly, at 25 feet they go down 2 inches.. I'm just sick of not being able to see at night, and want to figure out this issue. Any ideas?
Thank you for any help you could provide!

 

honestly, sounds like head lights arent aimed properly.

BECAUSE!
high beams use the same bulb as low beams. it's just one bulb.
and you specifically said, high beams look great!! but aimed at trees.

 

Were going to need pics. It may a case of the projector bowl being burnt and not refracting enough light anymore. Color me intrigued..

 

also, what kelvin temperature did you go with for the Morimotos?

anything above 5000Kelvin and you are reducing light output

 

Passenger side. Both freshly cleared, 1000 to 2500 grit wet sand, with meguire's plastx to coat it. Didn't use any sealant.
This passenger side is much directly in the sun than the drivers side.

I went with the 4500k Morimotos, and have been using them so they've likely cooled down to about 5000k.

pictures are as follows-

 

headlights look good to me! thoiboi, you see anything wrong?

are the projectors supposed to be cloudy like that?

 

The outer lens look fine but the condition of the fresnel lens itself looks to be a potential issue.. Fresnel lenses aren't exactly the clearest (hence one of the upgrades for the headlight is the ZKW clear lens).

I suspect the projector lens and bulb may be contaminated somehow causing a dimmer output. You won't know unless you take the whole headlight apart (bake it open) and investigate . One thing you CAN try and do is take the housing off the car, remove the bulb, and look into the D2S socket housing to see if anything looks out of the ordinary. It may be hard to see the condition of the bowl itself, but you can see directly at the back of the lens and see if maybe there's some foreign material on there be it oil , dirt, dust, etc.


I meant output pics. But these do help as well. Can you post some night pics too?

 

how would they get contaminated in the first place???

 

Improper handling of bulbs prior to installation, improper installation causing condensation moisture etc to enter, Bad batch of bulbs causing excessive heat and burning the bowl.


Its not unheard of

 

I thought he said he cleared them(opened them up)...but then i re-read and he said he polished the outside covers.
so, if they are factory sealed headlights, you're right...the only way containments get in is the bulb opening

hopefully he didnt touch the bulbs with his greasy fingers!

 

Threw up some shade pics for the housings.
No, I've owned the car since 150k, and about 3.5-3 years. Only replaces bulbs, never baked the housing. I can afford to replace the lenses if I do it myself, which doesn't seem too too complicated to do if done carefully. I will get output pics as soon as it's dark, in w few hours. My lower fogs aren't aimed well, ones Pointed too high, but it supplies a tiny more lighting the road and I need all I can get.

 

hmm interesting.
as stated, I dont see anything wrong with your headlights.

very possible that its internal and or not aimed properly.

 

I'll see what you think about the output pics, and then maybe look into doing the lenses with zkw-r's if the lenses don't look dirty from the inside. Ahh, the projects just keep piling up!

 

I'll be waiting

 

Ok guys, here goes. There're 2 more pictures I should go out and readjust my headlights back to how I normally run them for, those would be normal adjustment on road, and normal adjustment on road highbeams. Lets see if I can format this well. Also, finding a wall to do this against really emphasized my nonexistent cutoff to me. There is no light for hundreds of feet facing the brick wall I'm pointed at, although it is a very bright moon tonight. I don't car much about a cutoff for the style per-se, but my understanding is that a good cutoff would be focusing more of that shitty light onto the road. I'm just nervous about baking my headlights...

This is normally (for me) adjusted low beams. At 25-30 ft, the beam dips down ever so slightly, measured at the left notch where it starts to descend.
With my normally adjusted lows, this is my high beam pattern. Clearly trying to shed light on the meaning of life, rather than the deer jumping in front of my car.
Now if I keep those highs on, and adjust for the high beam pattern to be somewhat useful, this is what I get. I know this looks fine for a high beam pattern, but it's not actually outputting that much light on the road. Not even what I'd call average for other car's low beams. And they might even still be aimed a hair high, only counting this pattern.
Then I run into this when I turn off the highs. I'm sorry this picture's out of focus, but that low beams is pretty much lighting up the 10-15 feet in front of my car perfectly.... but nothing beyond that.
This is a picture of both sets of fog lights on, and the low beams, which are currently adjusted low for the good high beam pattern.
High beams on a road near me. Those signs are 35ish feet away by my best guess.
Low beams in the same spot, which are still clearly way too low and absolutely not useful at all.

 

Are your bulbs seated correctly? The high beams should not have a hot spot like that. It is just a flap that moves and lets light out to fill in the top portion of the beam. Should not be a big hot spot like that.

 

I suppose it's possible that they aren't. Does anyone else agree with that possibility? They're a pain in the ass to get to....

 

Yeah the bulbs don't look properly seated for one.

 

OP, did you use a tape measure to measure your distance from that wall. It may just be the photo, but it looks to me like you're more than 25' from the wall.

And I'd tend to agree with a possible improper seating of the bulbs or maybe they didn't apply the wire cliip/clamp properly. Taking the bumper off is pretty easy once you've done it a few times. Then there's 5 bolts (maybe it's 7, I forget) to remove the headlight assemblies.

I recommend putting the bulb in the assembly first, then putting the igniter on the bulb.

 

I was about 2 car lengths from the wall. I can use a tape measure if you'd like me to, the wall's just on the other side of my neighborhood. I'll pop the bumper off in the morning, it'll likely be way easier to make sure everything's seated right with the housing out. I'll watch a video on it tonight and pop the housings off tomorrow. Must be that everything's not seated right if it's just a flap that moves to remove the cutoff. With how the beam changed, I though it must have been a little servo or something that slightly moves the bulb! Serves me right for never just looking into how it really works.

 

You said in your first post that your headlights are dim, from your pics they do not look dim at all, I think its all about adjustment, and yours look like they are out of adjustment or something is wrong with housings/cutoff. Light output looks good. I think once you get them adjusted/issue figured out you will be happy with the light output and lighting of the road.

 

I called it.

improper adjustments, bulb not seated correctly.

OP!!!!! you're ADJUSTING them wrong!

 

Eastcoastguy, I know they don't look dim against a wall, but the light output onto the road that's more than 30 feet away is abysmal. I simply can't see anything in the road, especially if there's any oncoming light, or ever a streetlight. When I pass under a streetlight, I'm temporarily blinded because my lights actually put out so little light onto the road. I'm hoping that it's because the bulbs aren't seated correctly. This would be resulting in the focused light actually being blocked by the cutoff, which would explain the hotspot when it moves when the high beams come on.

Justnspace- No need to yell! if the bulbs are just seated properly, my own hate of the stupidity I've portrayed for the last 2 years will be enough punishment.....

 

So, I have the bumper off and the drivers side headlight off so far, and took the bulb off and put it back, bulb first, then ignitor. I guess I'll reconnect the battery, and see if the beam pattern is different from lo/hi while it's still off. The inside of the lens just looks cloudy, like hazy. I'm sure it's the stock lens, since it was dealer maintained before I bought it, and the lens has those ridges to it. I'll update as I go!

 

Ok, good news! It appears that my mind and my wallet owes a thanks to you guys, I did my drivers side headlight and it looks a lot better. Here are low and high beam pictures, I noticed immediately how the high beam just expanded, and didn't rotate 30 degrees up. The image uploader is being weird, I'll try once more, but you can see the cutoff isn't too great still. higher concentration of light than I've ever had before, so I'm looking forward to seeing them and aiming them at night. This is only the drivers side light, I'm going to do the other now.

 

We (excluding justin ) rule

 

and sorry for yelling. I was just excited.

 

Be sure you measure out exactly 25' from the headlights to the wall this time....

And measure from the ground up to the middle of the headlights and then place tape or mark the wall at 2.1" below this height.

 

Also I should probably whip out a level and make sure the ground is EXACTLY level the entire way to the wall! You forgot that part! since it's not dark yet, I figured I'd stay busy.
Been meaning to see how a dipped grill would look for a while. saw a picture on here from 2011 of someones AM tl looking gorgeous will a satin black grill, so I'm dipping mine anthracite grey and seeing how it looks. I want a floating A, but I'm hesitant to cut the middle bar out of the bumper...

 

^^^ yeah, being level is important. I didn't include that because the ground "looked" pretty level in your pictures...

 

Ok, so the light I have in front of my car is 10 times better than ever before! Thanks guys for seeing what the problem was. Here are some pics, I think you can even see the tape measure in them! Low beams, with iPhone camera focused on the light to better show the focus.
Low beams. SO MUCH LIGHT!
High beams. I have since adjusted them about 6 times while driving to my buddy's house, just tweaking them up and down and all around.
My dip job went alright.... Looks good enough for now.

 

to me it doesn't look right at all. The cutoff should be razor sharp

 

Not on OEM, that's what 10 years and a clouded fresnel lens will yield you. Yours are probably razor sharp bevause they're recently modded

 

Got damn

 

So What exactly did you do to get better quality?
I am having the same problem. While night driving, I can barely see anything. The high beams are fine. The low beams are terrible.

 

show pic of output please

 

Dim Headlights RDX 2nd Gen-PLEASE FILE A COMPLAINT WITH NHTSA!!!!I have been battling the slowly degrading dimming headlight issue on my 2014 and my 2015 RDX, both vehicles bought used. I was in a head on collision totaling my 2015. Other posters are correct the issue is the reflective coating that deteriorates because the engineering of the vehicle and headlamp is to have the driving lights be on all the time the car is running so at 80,000+ the amount of heat has completely degraded the reflective coating housing. I had 1% lux reading as measured by an automotive illumination engineer ... yes 1%. I had to replace the headlights or not drive the car at night or illegally drive with my hi-beams on. I paid Acura dealer $2227 to perform the repair and both the dealer and Acura snubbed their nose at me and said they would do nothing to compensate me unless the NHTSA ordered a mandatory recall. Acura had a mandatory NHTSA recall to that era ILX for this same issue and Nissan has just settled a class action lawsuit for the same issue. The headlights were all manufactured by National Automotive Lighting (NAL). We Honda/Acura loyalists need to demand a full recall on the defective headlamps. Law firm Chimicles Schwartz Kriner & Donaldson-Smith LLP is trying to identify impacted Acura RDXowners and investigate/pursue filing a Class Action Lawsuit. They were the law firm successfully in the Nissan class action lawsuit. Impacted owners should file a formal complaint with the NHTSA at https://www.nhtsa.gov/report-a-safety-problem#vehicle. File a complaint about the danger of your dim headlights and share your personal costs, fear, danger, accident, death, or repairs you had to undertake because of Acura’s failure to engineer a safe vehicle and then its failure to remedy their defect. If we can band together and be successful with either the NHTSA and/or a class action lawsuit, we could be fully compensated for the replacement of the headlamps at Acura’s. These Acura are now being passed down to teenage drivers because they are generally a long mile reliable vehicle. Do you want your 16 year old inexperienced driver to not be able to see the road at night and veer off the road or into oncoming traffic and kill your 80 year old mother? Pass it on.

 

Dim Headlights RDX 2nd Gen-PLEASE FILE A COMPLAINT WITH NHTSA!!!!I have been battling the slowly degrading dimming headlight issue on my 2014 and my 2015 RDX, both vehicles bought used. I was in a head on collision totaling my 2015. Other posters are correct the issue is the reflective coating that deteriorates because the engineering of the vehicle and headlamp is to have the driving lights be on all the time the car is running so at 80,000+ the amount of heat has completely degraded the reflective coating housing. I had 1% lux reading as measured by an automotive illumination engineer ... yes 1%. I had to replace the headlights or not drive the car at night or illegally drive with my hi-beams on. I paid Acura dealer $2227 to perform the repair and both the dealer and Acura snubbed their nose at me and said they would do nothing to compensate me unless the NHTSA ordered a mandatory recall. Acura had a mandatory NHTSA recall to that era ILX for this same issue and Nissan has just settled a class action lawsuit for the same issue. The headlights were all manufactured by National Automotive Lighting (NAL). We Honda/Acura loyalists need to demand a full recall on the defective headlamps. Law firm Chimicles Schwartz Kriner & Donaldson-Smith LLP is trying to identify impacted Acura RDXowners and investigate/pursue filing a Class Action Lawsuit. They were the law firm successfully in the Nissan class action lawsuit. Impacted owners should file a formal complaint with the NHTSA at https://www.nhtsa.gov/report-a-safety-problem#vehicle. File a complaint about the danger of your dim headlights and share your personal costs, fear, danger, accident, death, or repairs you had to undertake because of Acura’s failure to engineer a safe vehicle and then its failure to remedy their defect. If we can band together and be successful with either the NHTSA and/or a class action lawsuit, we could be fully compensated for the replacement of the headlamps at Acura’s. These Acura are now being passed down to teenage drivers because they are generally a long mile reliable vehicle. Do you want your 16 year old inexperienced driver to not be able to see the road at night and veer off the road or into oncoming traffic and kill your 80 year old mother? Pass it on.

 

Acura 2013 2014 2015 dim headlights class action investigation

https://chimicles.com/acura-rdx-dim-...investigation/

 

Acura 2013 2014 2015 dim headlights class action investigation

https://chimicles.com/acura-rdx-dim-...investigation/