Headlight problem

I am now facing the same problem, which I'm told is a headlight problem. This seems odd as the headlights actually work everytime you turn them on. 2 toyota dealers have advised me to change the headlights and then see. A big problem with that is Toyota designed the Prius so that the front bumper must be removed (total time needed 3 hrs). The other design flaw if you can call it that is that the headlights cost over $320(that's right three hundred twenty) each. I know it is often expensive to go green, but that's a little rediculous!
Toyota needs to hear from all of us.

 

Review back and look at my instructions as well as some others.. you don't have to remove the bumper..... its just easier if you know how and have all the tools and someone is paying you to do it "like the dealer", if your one of us, just do it yourself... no real tools needed.

 

For what it's worth: I have a package 8 Prius (2006) and have had the front headlight units (HID) replaced -FIVE- times (three times for the driver's side; twice for the passenger side). Plus I've had the tail lights (running lights) replaced once each. I sure hope Toyota recalls them and replaces the units (I'd -love- to have plain ol' halogens instead! But I wanted the GPS and the HID's came with that package).

And yes-- giving them a sharp rap with my hand often made them come back on.

 

Wow Rondodog, I was never able to get mine to respond to a tap or hit.
It almost sounds like you could have a bad ballast hitting the bulbs with improper voltage if its taking out so many bulbs.

For all I know, that could be all of our problem?...... but I replaced both bulbs on both cars some time back and they are both still working.

On one of my cars, I noticed the bulb went out twice, but never again so far, and that was about two months ago.

If you hit HID bulbs with too much voltage and overdrive them, they do fail prematurely, but I don't know if thats the case here since I have no way to measure them.

As discussed earlier in the thread, it seems almost like they were getting too "little" voltage since they like to fire up with a restart...... but I don't know.

You would think the good ole boys at Toyota could test the ballast for proper voltage to the bulb..... maybe thats too hard???

Or maybe the problem is not consistent enough to check.

But all I know is once the bulb gets so bad it goes bad all the time, replacing it fixes the problem in most cases.
So if yours is going bad that often, you must be getting bad bulbs or have really bad ballast that keeps toasting them is all I can figure.

What is your bulb source?

 

Two things:

1. Bulbs, including the HIDs, are not covered by the extended warranty from Toyota Financial. So, for those of you thinking you're covered or that you should get the extended warranty to be covered, you're setting yourselves up to be disappointed.

2. Toyota corporate followed up with me today to make sure everything went well and that the problem is solved. They advised me to be sure to keep the dealership paperwork because I might need it.

This seems very telling that some form of recall action might pop soon.

 

Bulbs are not covered because they are obviously a wear item thats expected to go bad after a time. However, These HID bulbs are extremely expensive and advertised to have 10 times the life of a Halogen bulb and should by no means start going bad the first year to year and a half.

Even as tires aren't warrantied either, I'm sure if they only lasted 5000 miles instead of 50000, there was be some serious issues..... both are safety concerns and bulbs have a way of getting you a ticket if one is out unnoticed as I got myself.

That rule about bulbs not being covered under warranty is obviously a common sense protection clause, but that clause should not be "abused" as its also common sense that 2000.00 worth of lights should last more than 30000 miles and not cost over a thousand dollars to fix....

Lets not allow rules that were made to protect the manufacturer from abuse instead be used to abuse the customer who bought these lights in good faith from Toyota believing they would last longer than a Halogen bulb that only cost 20 bucks.

There is always a difference between whats "legal" and whats "right".

Is it "right" to be legal when its wrong?, or is it "legal" to be wrong instead of right?

They don't "have" to do anything legally, we can't force them... and they can't force us not to have bitter feelings when we go for our next purchase.

Our feelings tend to not follow laws fashioned by lawyers, but follow a higher law of justice and it usually doesn't take a rocket scientist to tell us when we've been taken advantage of due to a manufacturer defect that no one wants to take the blame for.

I was hoping Toyota had a little better morals than our own government.

 

Windstrings: My HID bulbs started going out at about the 20K mile mark...one may have gone out around the 14K mark, but I'd have to check to be sure. I hope Toyota eventually recalls them: I'm well out of warranty and they cost a fortune to replace. My last replacement (about three months ago) Toyota covered as part of a previous problem (they'd replaced that light at least once before, so there was precedence).

I was lucky: I drove in to the service center to get a routine check and the light was out. My service rep sounded skeptical when I described the problem, but he became a believer when I showed him the light, gave it a sharp rap with the flat of my hand, and the light came on.

I'm actually somewhat relieved to hear that the HID bulbs aren't covered by the extended warranty: I'd missed the point of being able to get one and felt bad when the light went out.

FYI: All of the fixes of the HID problems were done at a Toyota dealer's service center. They initially replaced the bulb, believing the rap-start of the light to be the filament being loose (and the slap re-connecting it). Later they replaced the entire unit (including the computer control board-- I think there's one for each light). I have had the entire unit replaced twice on the driver's side and at least once on the passenger side. I think I've replaced the bulbs or units about five times total. My tail light had the same problem: they'd go out, then a sharp rap would get them on again. All Toyota parts and service.

It could be the ballast or the voltage, but I'm guessing that the mechanics did all they could to test that since replacing the bulbs/units is so expensive.

 

Mine didn't respond to tapping, hitting, or banging... I wonder if you just have a loose connection somewhere around the fuse box or some central location that supplies all the lights?... the taillights are not HID..... interesting..

 

...Or it could have just been my "Fonzie" moment: Aaaaayy! But it was funny how a sharp tap would often work. Considering the complexity of the HID lights, it's probably some bad solder-connection (no idea about the tail light). The service tech had no clue why the slap worked. And this worked when they changed the bulb only (and it went out again) and when they changed out the whole unit. I was inwardly pleased: such a technique never worked for my computer (usually made it worse, according to the tech). Turning the headlights off and on also usually worked (much better when driving).

 

Well, I called Toyota (1-800-331-4331) today and was VERY disappointed. "Katherine" was quite unfriendly and defensive. She claimed I was past the 36K mi warranty, and offered nothing, and promised nothing. She would not acknowledge that they were helping other Prius owners with intermittent headlights, or that there was a problem.

She was most interested in what dealer contact and action I had experienced. She even wanted the name of the service advisor I had talked to.

Did others who called Toyota and got satisfaction start out this way??? Or maybe they have they tightened up on addressing this problem.

I'm going to wait a few days to see if I get a call back, before I take any other action.

Thanks!

 

Sounds like she is going to try and botch the whole deal.... maybe you can do better to call and ask for the supervisor and then tell them about your experience as compared to others who have called in.

I don't see what would be wrong with keeping them accountable and telling them you communicate on a forum specifically about Prius's and we all share our experiences with each other.

That would "on the one hand" let them know if they gave you a break, that others would find out, but also "on the other hand" they also would know that if they treated you harshly, others would know that too.

 

I would not believe I had a headlight out when my sister said so about a month ago. But yesterday, I saw it happen in the reflection from the car in front of me at a traffic light. I restarted the lights, and it started up. However, I noticed that there was an observable warmup time for the bulb that was out. This was at about 6:30pm, before dusk, so I could not tell when I was on the freeway.

This is my first problem on a 2006 I bought in june 2006. Time to see how good my dealer is (or find another. the GM part of motorcars was so bad with managing repair work, I wonder how bad the Toyota part is)

 

Why do I get the feeling this could be the longest thread in history before its over?
The frequency of complaints pouring in about this seems to keep picking up faster and faster.

 

I went ahead and had my driver-side HID bulb replaced by my dealer (for $443 for the bulb, $10 for clips, and $150 labor, total $602.94). Then I called Toyota corporate and demanded reimbursement. The customer rep merely recorded my info and told me a case manager would call me within one business day.

I got the bulb replaced immediately instead of waiting for resolution of the finances, because:

1. For safety and to avoid traffic tickets, in case the bulb replacement really does fix it.
2. I figure the odds are better for getting reimbursement than for getting Toyota to arrange in advance for free or discounted repair. (That's just my guess.)
3. My dealer will reimburse me for the bulb replacement if it turns out that the bulb was not faulty. That's because I did not tell them to replace the bulb. I carefully and explicitly told them that the headlight spontaneously goes out, and that I don't know whether the cause is just the bulb, or the ballast, or the computer, or something else. So my excellent dealer service guy wrote into my receipt that I reported the headlight goes off and on intermittently, and that the technician noted the HID bulb has burned out. That makes my dealer responsible for the diagnosis. Of course, if the computer or ballast end up being bad, I would have to pay for those after the dealer diagnosed them as the problem. But if I had replaced the bulb myself I would be stuck with that bill regardless of whether the bulb really was at fault.

The correct Toyota corporate number to call is 800-331-4331. That's the Toyota Customer Experience Center. Do not bother calling the extended warranty people, because they refuse to do anything except deal with items covered under warranty.

Some of the conflicting statements in this thread seem to be due to confusion about whether you've got the halogen bulbs that are standard, cheap ($10), and might be replaceable without removing the bumper, with the high intensity discharge (HID) bulbs that are optional, $200-$300 each, and maybe do require removing the bumper. Even my dealer's service center intake guy mistakenly thought I had the regular halogen ones; only the technician recognized them as HIDs.

I'm waiting for a Toyota Customer Experience Center case manager to call me back.

 

I agree about the confusion.. I addressed it several times.
the HID bulbs are the ones that are supposed to have to have the bumper removed, but as I and others have discovered, that is completely unnecessary if you do it yourself.

 

Well, here I sit on page 26 of "Headlight problem" in a thread I would have preferred not to know about. Unfortunately my Prius HID headlamp had other ideas.

Fortunately my 2007 Prius is still under warranty, so yesterday's repair was covered. Because of what I read here, I questioned the service "adviser" about the estimated cost in Dublin, CA and it was around $600. Also, I asked if they were going to replace both bulbs and he replied that Toyota (corporate) has changed to replacing only the single defective bulb. This seems to be very shortsighted on their part, and with the seemingly exorbitant cost involved will create many dissatisfied Toyota customers in the not so distant future.

While I am not sure I would change my choice of auto/model/options, it sure does affect whatever eventual savings of using a more fuel efficient automobile. In many respects, I wish I had bought a base model with the Halogen lamps. Cheaper in the short run. Cheaper in the long run.

I am dissatisfied with Toyota's apparent stance on this issue. From what I have heard on this thread, a high school student with small hands could put himself through college just by replacing Prius HID bulbs and charging just 50% of the dealer cost. A dealer has overhead and their mechanic needs to troubleshoot the problem, but when there is a Toyota admitted epidemic in HID bulb failures, wouldn't you suspect the bulb first?

I will join those voicing my concern to Toyota Motor Corporation and will not hesitate bringing up the issue with the many people that ask me about my Prius.

 

Sound like they don't get it yet.... they act like its a "freak" occurence and the other bulb should be fine?..... I think "all" of their bulbs are bad, or at the very best, there is a high liklihood the customer will be back in and the labor charge toyota pays will be incurred all over again. So toyota pays more in the long run by making you come back.. and so does the customer.

I wonder whos running the penny pinching show down there?

 

FYI - The right HID headlamp went out in my 2006 Prius. Vehicle out of warranty by mileage: 42,000 miles. Called Toyota Customer Service and told them I thought the bulb should be replaced at no charge since the vehicle was still within the 36 months warranty period. My argument was that headlamp blubs are not sensitive to mileage.

Toyota told me to have the bulb replaced at my local dealer and then fax them a paid receipt, at which time they would issue me a 100% refund for the repair cost. I received a reimbursement check for $462.30 within three weeks of faxing the receipt!

 

Sweet... I'm writing that one down.

 

i dont agree with that.
Headlight life is directly related to time spent in the on position.
I would argue that headlights in the on position are related to how long the car has been on which in turn is related to how far the car has traveled.

This is why the warrenty is a which ever happens FIRST time or milage.