Not all HID Bulbs are created equal

Yep. One needs to be careful.

So that people see what I'm talking about, see attached.

Hmm, original attachment was corrupted and cut off and I can't upload a new one.

 

Hi I hope this is not off topic. I'm looking for troubleshooting help with the HID/ECU. About a month ago I replaced a bulb in my wife's 2009 with one of a pair (assumed the other side would follow soon) I got off of Ebay. By all appearances they're genuine Philips Bulbs, one installed fine and worked properly...for about a month. So, being a suspicious type, I "hung" the other bulb (attached it to the socket and set on a clean dry surface) to see if the bulb would light, which it did not. So I checked for power at the socket, with the bulb out, a good Fluke DMM showed no useable level of either AC or DC voltage. My question - is that a valid test or does the ECU need to see current flow before it drops to the "on" levels you state as 17-85 VAC? Or did I likely destroy the ECU by running it without the bulb? Or is my methodology inapplicable to the circuit/components?
Thanks for the highly informative article

 

Unfortunately, this happened to me. Back in Dec, I bought a pair of "OEM" D4R bulbs through Amazon, but didn't really think anything about it being from a 3rd party. The bulbs turned out to be counterfeit Phillips bulbs. I later bought "real" Phillips bulbs directly from Amazon, but got stuck with the fake set which cost just about the same as the real ones.

 

I hate to resurrect an old topic but I'm looking at The Retrofit Source site and can't find any D4R bulbs. Based on some reading I don't think the D2R bulbs can be used in place of D4Rs in my 06 Prius (or can they? I'd love to be wrong here).

I've want to buy the D4R "Philips OEM" from Amazon, there seems to be 2 marketplace vendors, Triton Max and AutoX, but can't be sure if they're fake.

Has anyone bought from either of them and confirm that these are real?

 

Why bother w/those? Why not buy ones sold directly by Amazon and not 3rd parties?

 

I wouldn't bother with 3rd party vendors

 

Yeah I'd buy from Amazon directly if I could but it seems only third party sells through Amazon. Can't find one that Amazon sells directly.

This is what I'm looking at though $81 for both bulbs seem a little too good to be true.

 

That's really weird. I confirm what you're seeing. Perhaps you should place a customer service request w/Amazon to ask what's going on and why they aren't selling them?

As an alternative, perhaps try one of these? Philips Zip Code Locator. This page comes from Philips Car lights, Lighting, under Where to buy.

 

From the Amazon website today:

That sucks, because my bulb is on its way out (or ballast? Is there any way to tell for sure which is going bad?) and I was just about to purchase the one linked from here from Amazon. Now I'm not sure whether I should because I don't know whether it will be genuine or a fake and I don't want to waste time or money on a fake bulb. And The Retrofit Source doesn't seem to carry the D4R bulb, so I'm at a loss as to where to buy a good bulb for a reasonable price. Sure I can always get one from the dealer for $160, but no way am I willing to pay that price just for a headlight bulb.

Just for clarification though, my symptom is that the headlight turns on just fine, and generally runs just fine for as long as the car is on at night, until I have to shut the headlights off. The second time I turn it on, it'll come on again but sometimes will go out after 2-5 minutes, sometimes after 20 minutes, and sometimes not at all. Sometimes when I first turn it on the second time of the night, it comes on in a really dim pink/purple color, but warms up to white. Other times on the second time I turn it on, it turns on white just like the good one. This seems to happen independent of the outside temperature, but I haven't tracked the temperature to be absolutely sure of that.

I also noticed about a year ago that the bad bulb would sometimes flicker ever so slightly dimmer, but not always. So What IS the way to tell whether you have a bad bulb or bad ballast without spending $200 on a ballast and $50-100 on a bulb? Are the symptoms different or are they just inconclusive without replacing the parts?

 

I guess I should also ask whether the ballast really NEEDS to be a Toyota ballast if I have to replace it or if I'd be OK to replace it with a different brand for the same D4R bulb? It seems like the ballast in the Prius may just be a little flaky since I've never heard of another car that uses D4R bulbs having premature failures before.

Could I get away with using a Lexus or Nissan or some other brand of ballast instead?

Or a reputable aftermarket one?

 

Thanks, Toaster, for a great thread. I read the entire thing and studied your great photos before ordering bulbs for my '07. It's new to me and the right was definitely out. After changing them, I found that the good one (the left) was aftermarket, so obviously changed recently.

I'm posting to pass on some current info on quality. I ordered my bulbs from Xenon Corp (through Amazon), and by all indications they are genuine Philips (ordered in January 2014). I won't quote the price, since it'll be stale info for anybody reading this, but it was reasonable. It's also worth noting that the aftermarket I pulled out of the left was labeled Harison, and was working fine. I'm not sure how long it's been in there, but it has worked at least for the 30 hrs or so that I've run it. For the price of OEM, though, I'm not sure why you'd go with anything else.

 

Because you want a bulb that lasts longer than the OEM that led to a class action lawsuit and Toyota recall ?

Phillips may have corrected it's quality issue -- I don't know. Certainly though, the OEM label is no guarantee of quality in this case.

 

Thanks for the history lesson. Somehow I doubt that circa 2006/2007 bulbs being sold on Ebay are advertised as such, which I think brings us back to my point: just knowing that the bulb is Phillips is no guarantee of quality.

 

You seem to be assuming same (or close to) manufacturing years. Would you prefer a Phillips made in 2007, or a generic made in 2013 ?

Anyway, IIRC the people who experienced early failures had trouble figuring out which bulbs to buy and were instructed to buy the D4x because that was the OEM version. Irony

 

This is a really informative article, I love to learn things. Especially timely for me as I am unsatisfied with my 2013 Prius lights. I was ready to upgrade but after reading about all the problems and expense my stock lights seem much better. Guess I'll just have to do all my driving in daylight! Hundreds of dollars for bulbs that may only last a month or so is ridiculous!!!!