Time to change HID's but I'm confused!!!

Yes, that is the classic sign of bad bulbs. There are several reputable sellers on ebay. OEM equivalent is a Philips 85126. It should be possible to get a pair for $60 or so. Ebay is also your best bet for higher temp colors.

 

I purchased my first replacements from amazon. Same you have listed. 9-10k? you want blue blue lights right? 5-6k is where the white (not yellow) starts to turn blueish. Lots of states they are illegal. I changed fog and hid to 6k so they match.

 

From the sound of this, you probably have the HID bulbs since they are so hard to find. All you need to know is if they are D2R or D4R bulbs. Not all those other numbers. Then you need to know....DO NOT GET THE AFTERMARKET BULBS!!! You can get them cheaper than the dealer, BUT get the Phillips bulb, not an off brand. The place I bought mine worked well with me on this. Mine is a 2007 with the D4R bulbs. From MArch thru September I went thru 3 sets of the off brand bulbs. 1 set worked for 4 months, 2nd for a month, 3rd set for less than a week. Finally we made a trade for the difference in price (54.95 to 154.95 for a set.... Still about $50 bucks cheaper than the dealer for the same brand bulb). I had told a friends about the cheaper bulbs and he bought a set also. His lasted a week and he traded for the OEM Plillips bulbs also. I had to borrow his one good original bulb so that I had at least 1 headlight until I could get the replacements. Ask and I will send you the name of the place I got the OEM bulbs cheaper than the dealer. Now we are both working good again

 

I got mine from seller "factory xenon"

http://motors.shop.ebay.com/factory_xenon/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=

Search the link above for prius and that should get you there.

The bulbs looked IDENTICAL as did the part number and manufacturer to the bulbs that came out of my 16k mile 2007 Touring. It's a crime Toyota charges us $150 each for these, and acts as though it's a discount, especially with the class action suit.

They are easy to replace without taking the bumper off. Simply remove the fuse box cover for the drivers side, and remove the top of the air intake which only requires one philips type plastic clip to be removed from the passenger side of the front plastic cover to allow it to slide up and out. Then remove the two plugs on the bottom of the washer res. pushing the clips to release the plugs. I found this gave me enough space to do the job pretty easily and I do not have small hands. A small mirror helps to ensure the bulb is in right.

I thought I may have to remove the wahser res, but it was easy enough even without doing that.

oh yea DO NOT TOUCH THE GLASS ON THE NEW BULBS OR THEY MAY BURN.

 

I'm having the same headlight problems exactly with my 2005 Prius. Have you replaced your bulbs? Did you buy the D2R or the D4R? Thanks for any suggestions, Gene

 

D2R is for 04-05. I have an 05 also
Depending on what you want the light color to be 4300 yellowish, 6k white, 9k blue.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=hid+2005+prius

I did 6k for fog and HID on all my cars. Nice white. Blue illegal in CA.

 

For the record mine is an 07, so the seller in the link I posted has the same HID bulbs that came in 07.

 

Good luck with aftermarket bulbs or any other than the original Philips brand in a Prius. I had 3 sets of the off brand. None of them would keep working. A close friend had the same problem with the off brand. We both exchanged them for the Philips bulbs and have had no problems since. The off brands work fine in anything but a Hybrid. Something to do with the electronics. WE got ours @ High Performance Bulbs.com. They are good to work with and have a good price on the originals. $154.99 for the set. That is still cheaper than the dealer for the same thing @ $100 a bulb

 

As I understand it only a "D4R" type bulb will work. You may have the wrong type if it won't stay lit.

 

Narf, the 2004 and 21005 Prius with HID use D2R bulbs. Toyota changed to the D4R bulbs starting with the 2006 MY. Ryan

 

Easy to change HID bulbs? Yes! Safe? No! You can get a very bad shock, or get electrocuted by changing an HID bulb unless you know what you are doing. There is residual current in the system long after the lights are turned off. Leave the bulb changing to a pro and save yourself a shock, or worse.

 

I've changed HID's at least 3 times in various cars. I realize they are high voltage when powered on but I did not realize the balast stored enough power to need special handeling other than just having them off. Regardless a simple warning to not touch the inside of the plug would suffice, I doubt it's as scary as you make it out to be.

If the pro's want to take my entire front end of my car apart, no thanks, I'll do it myself. I personally think a mechanic probably scared you out of doing it yourself so he could make a few bucks.

I just did some poking around on the web, the only danger anyone seems to mention with HID or Xenons is when you install an aftermarket kit into stock Halogen housings, you blind oncoming drivers. I noticed some folks suggested diconnecting the battery before replacing.

I guess I have and will cointinue to live dangerously.

 

Changed all mine in 5 prii. No shock. Leave them off for a long time mostly because they will be hot let alone the charge left over. If you don't know what you are doing there are 4 videos and another dozen on youtube on how to do it. You can change them with the bumper on, just can't see what you are doing is all with the spring clips and only room for one hand. While I had the bumper off I upgraded the fog lights, horn and replaced HID lights. All this been discusssed in 4 other threads already.

 

krg, Can you show me the link to the fog light upgrade? I'd love to get more light, I don't know why but these lights don't seem to light up the road as well as what I'm used to. My first impression is that 35w is too low, but it looks like most HID's even for other cars are the same 35w.

Might be off topic even more, but has anyone adapted one of the latest high powered LED lights to the fog light housings? Could they be effective enough to help? I wonder if there is some good way to upgrade without blasting oncoming traffic LED or Halogen.

 

I have a 2008 an run my HIDs ALL THE TIME. They started going intermittent at about 60,000 miles. I bought the off brand and they did NOT work. I returned those and got the Phillips exact same number as the OEM for $60 for two. I think the website was xenon.com. As for changing the bulbs yourself, the first time is difficult because you don't know what to expect. After that it takes 10 minutes per bulb. The key is to remove the fuse box cover on the drivers side and the air vent on the passenger side. Use a mirror and a good light to get a good look before you start. The key to the black plastic cover is to turn it about 1/8 turn counter clockwise and then pull it off. I used a screwdriver held against the tabs on the plastic cover and tapped the screwdriver with a hammer. It was a little tight the first time. I think it had sealer on the rubber o-ring. Once the cover is moved back, the connector to the back of the light comes off the same way. That is, you turn it about 1/8 turn counter clockwise and the pull the connector off of the light. Use the mirror to check what is going on between operations. The next step is a little tricky but can be done. Use one hand to hold the back of the bulb in place while you disengage a spring clip on each side of the bulb. Look in the mirror to see how to move the spring clips. Then carefully remove the bulb and insert the other one in the same orientation. There is a notch in the bulb holder to make sure it will only go in one position. Hold the bulb in place with your middle fingers and re-engage the clips on either side with your other fingers. Then put things back together. My dealer wanted $150 per bulb plus $90 per bulb to change them. That's $480. It cost me $60. I can drive 7,000 miles on the money I saved. What a great day to own a Prius.

 

Nope... 2007 uses D4R. The original Philips work just fine. NO problems at all. It is the aftermarket bulb, as posted in another post after mine by bohenderson.

 

I am interested in where you bought your better OEM bulbs. Also have you had any problems with the ballasts going bad? I bought new D4R bulbs and they went out after five minutes and I had the same problem as I had with the OEM bulbs, so someone said that I needed to change the ballasts. I can't even find the ballasts on the 07 Prius. Anyone that can tell me how to go about this I would appreciate it. Thanks.
Andy

 

FWIW I too thought that a HID capsule replacement was needed as the left headlamp would quit, and simply turning it off and back on would cure the problem for awhile. Then I noticed other things like smart key acting up (I thought replacing the smart key battery would cure the but no joy), opening the trunk got to be erratic, the first element in the fuel amount indicator would dim whenever "Start" was pushed.

Replacing the auxiliary battery cured all those symptons, and the HID has not failed since the battery was replaced (over a month).