Still having problems with the HID's

[mrkrabs318]

I'm having a problem with my HID's and I am hoping someone who has had this problem could help me out. I have had the HIDS in the car for awhile now but this problem is really starting to get to me now. Everytime I turn on my lights I have to turn the headlight knob off and on a few times to get both headlights to come on together. It looks like a strobe light show in front of my car! Anyone else have this problem and if so how was it corrected? Thanks!

[SoCalRT]

Which brand of HID ballasts do you have?

[05HEMIMAGNUM]

Have you tried calling the manufacturer?

[kermit]

i asked most of the shops here in san diego and they have all had problems with dodges the 300 and the newer mercedes, i tried putting one on mine it looked like a cop car with it strobes on , one shop told me one guy with a dodge ram had the same problem and he went to the delear and they told him we have to program your computer and its about 300 bucks , he ended up going to a stereo and alarm place and got relays put in . i think its just the dealers way of you geting HID's from them for a grip more money. im picking up this wiring harness next week from my friends shop and hopefully it works and ill let all of you know how it goes !!!!

[mrkrabs318]

the ballasts are hella....
Kermit.....you said your friend had relays installed...where were they cut in? if you can find out.....it would be greatly appreciated....thanks

[305magnumon22s]

I had that problem with my hids. I took them off sold them and went and bought some new one had them installed as i left the shop they were flickering so i went back then they told me i had to wire them to my parking lights so i told them to take them off and give me my money back... needless to say they worked there magic and put resistors and have not had any problems with them since...

[kermit]

ill let you know how it goes

[MRMagnumSXT]

Hmmn....I really know nothing about HID's but this is a mod I really am interested in for my magnum due to my poor night vison. Thankfully, even the normal headlights of my car are 1000 times better than my crappy old ford contours were.

I poked around, trying to see what might cause the flickering. One thing might be bad ballasts, or maybe just lower grade ones? Something of that nature. I also saw something that said the ballasts needed to be relatively close to the lamps, like 2 feet or something, so that might be something to look into.

My original thought was that something off the alternator of the car might cause the flickering. The more I read how HID's work though, the more I think problems may come from bad/wrong type of ballasts. In a nutshell, HID's require extremely large amounts of voltage to create the arc needed initially when turned on. After that its a smaller amount of voltage needed to maintain the intensity.

That said, if they flicker right from the get go, it seems they might not be getting the voltage needed initially, or at least not enough. Though 305 says something about resistors, I'm not sure where they would put them or what effects they would have but maybe if it was a "alternator" issue, then resistors might help to cancel out some of the noise in the wiring? Dunno. But thought I'd try and add to the discussion anyways.

[steve]

The problem happens because the computer senses a 35W draw as opposed to a 55W draw and goes into diagnostic mode trying to figure out what's happening.

This is a fix I found online, but it may vary depending on the HID kit you purchase.

You need to attach the capacitor(pic attached) to the relay of the harness kit that came with your HID kit, you need to locate terminal 86, which is Positive, and terminal 85, which is Negative, then you need to connect the long wire (Pos.) of the capacitor to terminal 86, and the short wire (Neg.) of the capacitor to terminal 85.
You can do that the easy way like I did, or try to solder it to the prongs, or the wires leading to the 85 and 86 terminals.

[MRMagnumSXT]

Hehe steve, I just found that out myself, came here to post and you already had.