HID Ballasts Keep Failing

[yevgeniystupak]

Hello everyone! I recently switched my 2012 Audi a4 from halogen to bi-xenon headlights. Everything seems to be working perfectly. I did have to go non-oem on everything. Problem now, I have had 2 hid ballasts fail on me. Both on the same side. I'll include links to everything I am running. Is it just some bad luck or is there something wrong that could be going on? Any insight would be great!

Headlight Assembly: https://www.ecstuning.com/b-tyc-part...7091e1337101e/
3DS Bulbs: https://www.ecstuning.com/b-ziza-par...8538ziz03~ziz/
eBay led ballasts (so far so good. came from Germany)
eBay hid Ballasts (Bought a pair. One went back. Replaced it. Replacement went bad. Just replaced again.)

Could the bulbs be requiring too much power? Anything else I can check? But it's not making both hid ballasts fail. Just one.

[Project Quattro]

Where are you sourcing your ballasts? When I converted my previous car I got them from HID Concept and didn't have a problem. But if both failures were on one side I guess that could point to a bigger problem.


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[yevgeniystupak]

I bought them from a generic eBay seller. They are not oem, as far as I can tell (considering I paid $60 each). It originally failed on the passenger side. I swapped the ballasts to see if it was them or the bulb. Ended up being the ballast. I swapped it for free from the same seller. Just the other day, the driver side ballast (the one I replaced before) died on me again. Luckily I had ordered a 3rd ballast incase this would ever happen again so in between shipments, I'd have working headlights.

I did not know about HID Concept when ordering all the parts unfortunately. I got to thinking maybe the bulbs are a culprit and just to ease my concern, just ordered a pair of Philips extremeVision 4800k bulbs. Will install those and see if the problem ever rises again. Maybe as a future upgrade, I may order the ballasts from HID just to get some piece of mind.

This is more or less exactly the same hid ballast I have (looking at the faulty one currently). http://www.hidconcept.com/d3-mitsubi...ement-ballast/

Perhaps I'm not getting brand new ones and instead refurbished?

[Audi 4 Life]

Suggust you buy genuine oem ballast

Also more temp bulb is not better lighting it is lumens that matter higher temp has less lumens. The best bulbs to get are
Osrams CBI they have equal lumens as oem and a clean white light eith the slightest of tiny bluish tint. Careful there are tons of cheap eBay knock offs real ones are not cheap.

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[lowestA4]

This sort of xenon ballast hates aftermarket xenon bulbs. The internal resistance of these bulbs is not exactly the same as the OEM bulb. It has nothing to do with power consumption of the bulb. It should be better with the PHILIPS bulbs now.

[yevgeniystupak]

Thanks for the suggestions all. I will keep an eye out for used ballasts in the classifieds. New oem ballasts are around $300 a piece and not currently in my price range. Fingers crossed the new bulbs let my headlights last the normal length.

[Project Quattro]

Thanks for the suggestions all. I will keep an eye out for used ballasts in the classifieds. New oem ballasts are around $300 a piece and not currently in my price range. Fingers crossed the new bulbs let my headlights last the normal length.

Go to HIDConcept. They'll be OE and priced lower than that. Just about everything with these cars falls into the golden rule of "buy nice or buy twice." I bought two entire cars, so I know what I'm talking about.

[Audi 4 Life]

I bought my genuine ballasts off eBay got them for like 100 bucks each or less i forgot exactly how much they were brand new and shipped from some place like Lithuania or somethig like that.
Best way I found is to just type the part number only in search on eBay and sort by lowest price and new items.

Also I always compare my prices to
Genuineaudiparts.com so I know what the dealer price is.

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[yjypm]

There's another way around this. Do a led bulb swap and bypass the ballasts. The brightness is a little bit lower than hid but you get rid of the ballasts problem forever.
I did this on my B8.5, basically you swap the bulbs and take out the ballasts (you don't need them for led), then connect the power directly to the sockets that used to go to the ballasts inside the headlights (polarity doesn't matter).

The led bulbs I am using is this:
They claim to be 4800lm but actually not as bright as my Dama 5500k hid bulbs.
Also they are not as white (or blue-ish) as 5500k hid bulbs although they claim 6000k.
But overall they are a decent choice if you have a bad ballast.

Here's a comparison between the led (left) and my Dama hid (right):


Another one: (the light pattern is bit different too)

[yevgeniystupak]

Thats a very interesting idea! I'll probably continue to try with the hid setup I currently have but if I do have to abandon ship, I'll definitely keep this idea in mind!

[Zach L]

There are some high quality aftermarket ones sold by Lightwerkz. They have a YouTube video explaining the differences in brands/models and which ones work better with picky European cars like ours. I was actually thinking of upgrading to a 45 watt ballasts for the performance upgrade. Most options are either 35w or 55w.

http://www.lightwerkz.net/index.php/...-ballasts.html

[yjypm]

There are some high quality aftermarket ones sold by Lightwerkz. They have a YouTube video explaining the differences in brands/models and which ones work better with picky European cars like ours. I was actually thinking of upgrading to a 45 watt ballasts for the performance upgrade. Most options are either 35w or 55w.

http://www.lightwerkz.net/index.php/...-ballasts.html

Most 45w (or even some 55w) are actually 35w if you measure the current they draw from the 12v voltage supply. Some YouTube videos proved this.
I'd suggest you save the money and go for some decent 35w hid bulbs like Phlips XV.

[Zach L]

Most 45w (or even some 55w) are actually 35w if you measure the current they draw from the 12v voltage supply. Some YouTube videos proved this.
I'd suggest you save the money and go for some decent 35w hid bulbs like Phlips XV.

Yes, brighter bulbs will make a more significant difference than upgrading just the ballasts. But OP stated he needs new ballasts, so there's no harm in doing both. It's good for him to know good options. Any 35w bulbs, including the Phillips XV you mention, can be ran on higher wattage ballasts with a negligible decrease in bulb life. I say negligible because the higher output bulbs from Phillips and Osram already sacrifice lifespan for their brighter outputs. Bulb choice will affect lifespan more than ballast choice.

Ballast comparison video shows not a huge difference in output. I personally don't think I'd upgrade unless I had a reason to buy new ballasts anyway, such as the OP.

[video=https://youtu.be/_PiSDdVKivo]https://youtu.be/_PiSDdVKivo[/video]