civic si121

I posted before thinking it was my bulb but when I switched the bulbs to see if it was that the bulbs were fine. So I'm guessing now it has to be my ballast. What is the best way to go in this situation? If I want to buy after market ballast which ones do I have to buy to make sure they work good. The OEM one is way to expensive and alot of shops around where I live sell HID kits for cheap.

On the headlight that is not working I know water is getting to the inside because everytime I wash my car a little bit of water goes inside. Could that be the problem?

robotvoice

If your ballast is going bad, do NOT replace it with the ballast from a cheap HID kit. You will just wind up having to replace the cheap ballast over and over and wind up wasting money in the end. ALWAYS stay OEM with HID equipment, always. A quick search on Ebay brought up a few used s2k ballasts for 100-150 which is reasonable for this kind of equipment.

I'm not sure how the ballast attaches to your headlight (haven't gotten an s2k just yet) but if it attaches to the bottom and your headlight is leaking, your ballast could have become flooded and possibly damaged. To check this, take the ballast off the car and shake it to see if any water comes out of it. If so, try to shake as much water out of it as you can, then leave it out in the sun to air dry for several hours. This actually fixes a flooded STI HID ballast (it happened to me a few times in the past). If there's no signs of water damaged, swap the ballast to the other light to determine if the ballast is indeed dead or not.

DFWs2k

This happened to me. The rubber gasket btwn the part of the ballast that seats into the headlight somehow got Fd, and water was getting, which ended up blowing my ballast.

Got a replacement for aout $100, been great since.

civic si121

I will try that once I take off my headlights! Thanks!

civic si121

@dfws2k did u get a OEM one or after market?

DFWs2k

Oem, used w about 30k on it, i actually have an extra now, $100+shipping and paypal

Billman250

I have seen this before.

Remove the ballast cover, blow dry it with compressed air, headlights worked like new.

Water gets in through the braided wire cover.

Remove the clamp, pull the wire cover back, you'll see a red wire and a black wire. Seal them with silicone. The problem won't return.

civic si121

I took the the ballast today and swap it to the other side so it's deff the ballast where it connects in the center toward the bottom it has like white acid. I guess it's time for a new ballast -____-