3 Ballasts DEAD in 14 months!!??

L

LukeMace

Senior member
 Northampton
These flippin' things do my head in!!! Each time at £70-£100 a pop! 3 now blown on the same side. :(
I've even changed the headlight unit because I found it was cracked and plastic welded in places... This one just went last night :headbang:
Will get the bumper off tomorrow, take the light out and dry the light unit, take apart the ballast and dry that out too then hope for the best it works... Last 2 didn't work doing that though :(
 
I feel your pain, my second one of ebay in 12 months, the original one that came on the car new was destroyed by water getting in through the back. The second one I left 4 months before installing it like an idiot, it didnt work. When I opened it up I found 2 capacitors loose, i soldered them back on but it was deadas a door nail. Looks like the seller sent it to me like that I am guessing but too late to do anything about it. Another one arrived from a different seller last week with caps loose .. didnt even open that one up just sent it back. New one has arrived and so far so good all working. I think if another one blows or i have any more problems i'm going to buy some decent phillips ballasts, D2S plug and rewire it so the ballast sits inside the light slightly raised 5mm. Its a bad design IMO... only needs a tiny amount of water to get down the plug and the ballast is cooked! They should have mounted the ballast somewhere else so it is not used as a drain.
 
I've seen some replacement ballasts non oem for around £30 on eBay. Which ones are you looking into?
 
I was going to rewire any ballast into the inside housing so its not acting as the drain plug. The aftermarket ballast will be no better than OEM as water will still get in. Having said that mine have been bone dry since putting silicone sealer on the rear door seals (lots of it)
 
Yeah I put LOADS of sealer on mine too the last time it happened and its lasted a good while this time.

I was looking at something like this:
Factory Fitted HID Xenon ( D2R D2S ) BALLAST REPAIR KIT

http://bit.ly/UPrJSi
 
yeah that would work perfect, would just need to tap into the 12v feeding the OEM ballast, could prob mount that inside too.
 
That's what I'm thinking. Plenty of space inside for this, plus then no leaking problems from ingress on the underside of the headlamp straight down into the ballast... Stupid design!!

Do you reckon this would work then?
 
Yeah most certainly , you could piggy back the connections to the 12v from the existing wiring, leaving the current wire that goes from the OEM ballast to bulb with ignitor taped up inside somewhere should you wish to put back on the OEM ballast at some point. With the OEM ballast removed that plug will act as a perfect drainhole :-) The only thing you may get is bulb warning light out but you can code that off using NCSexpert or add a resistor.
 
Ended up taking light off (during AE project) heating up and drying the ballast completely... Job done! For now at least!! :thumbsup:
 
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