My 2011 Impala is chewing through headlights
11-02-2018, 11:03 PM
#21
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I think I may have isolated the problem, at least on the driver'* side. I noticed driving home for work that headlight was out yet again after replacing the bulb a little more than a week ago. When I got home, I took the headlight assembly out again, removed the bulb from the housing, unplugged it, plugged back in again and re-seated it in the housing. Voila! It was working again. On closer examination, it appears the socket connector is slightly discolored, so maybe when I briefly had those cheapo LEDs in there, the transformer box on the LED wasn't the only thing that got melted.
After I got the headlight working again, I immediately took the car to be inspected, which I hadn't managed to do this week. It passed and now I have a year to get the problem sorted out once and for all. I guess the next step will be to replace the socket connector. Hopefully, that will do the trick. I'm really getting sick of this shtuff.
After I got the headlight working again, I immediately took the car to be inspected, which I hadn't managed to do this week. It passed and now I have a year to get the problem sorted out once and for all. I guess the next step will be to replace the socket connector. Hopefully, that will do the trick. I'm really getting sick of this shtuff.
11-05-2018, 06:10 PM
#22
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I decided on an overkill solution today and it seems to have worked--at least for now. There'* an LKQ Pick Your Part location across the highway from where I teach, so once my classes were done, I headed over there and harvested an entire driver'* side headlight assembly for about the cost of two low beam bulbs at a chain auto parts store. I installed it when I got home and wouldn't you know it, the low beam bulb didn't work. Fortunately, after I swapped the bulb in from the original headlight assembly, everything was copacetic--at least for the moment. Whether or not it'* truly fixed, only time will tell.
11-05-2018, 07:20 PM
#23
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"it" is the headlight assembly without the sockets that you hacked off from the donor car?
Low-beam that came from the LKQ car?
11-05-2018, 08:01 PM
#24
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Correct. The generic Chinese made low beam bulb in the LKQ assembly did not work when I turned the lights on. All the other bulbs did. I did not bother to test it with a multimeter but I did stick it into the original headlight assembly where I can go back and test it later, if I decide to.
Correct. The bulb I put in was the same Osram Longlife bulb I had installed last week. I doubt it has seen five hours of use. I should note the low beam bulb connector on the LKQ headlight assembly was not at all discolored. My hypothesis is the connector got overheated when the transformer on the LED got melted. Although the socket doesn't appear distorted, just discolored, I have a suspicion that one of the contacts got very slightly distorted and doesn't make a firm connection to the bulb.
11-06-2018, 07:15 PM
#25
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This makes sense. The heat (that would overheat the connector) comes from the contacts in the plug. If those get so hot that the plastic of the connector discolors, the metal contact likely got much hotter and moved around in its liquefied plastic.
11-06-2018, 10:38 PM
#26
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The good news is that at least so far, the new headlight is working flawlessly. It seems to be aimed a tad higher than the passenger side but that can easily be corrected. I'll be periodically monitoring the plug on the new headlight for signs of discoloration.
11-07-2018, 07:25 PM
#27
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Great news!
11-14-2018, 04:56 PM
#28
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Another week, another bulb...
The driver'* side headlight is still working great but yesterday, the passenger side low beam gave up the ghost. This was the original bulb from the factory. It was a Phillips bulb and lasted almost eight years. That'* a pretty good run in my book. With new Osram Long Life bulbs on both sides, let'* hope this if finally it. I don't know exactly how 2018 got to be the year of the headlights.
The driver'* side headlight is still working great but yesterday, the passenger side low beam gave up the ghost. This was the original bulb from the factory. It was a Phillips bulb and lasted almost eight years. That'* a pretty good run in my book. With new Osram Long Life bulbs on both sides, let'* hope this if finally it. I don't know exactly how 2018 got to be the year of the headlights.
11-14-2018, 06:34 PM
#29
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Another week, another bulb...
The driver'* side headlight is still working great but yesterday, the passenger side low beam gave up the ghost. This was the original bulb from the factory. It was a Phillips bulb and lasted almost eight years. That'* a pretty good run in my book. With new Osram Long Life bulbs on both sides, let'* hope this if finally it. I don't know exactly how 2018 got to be the year of the headlights.
The driver'* side headlight is still working great but yesterday, the passenger side low beam gave up the ghost. This was the original bulb from the factory. It was a Phillips bulb and lasted almost eight years. That'* a pretty good run in my book. With new Osram Long Life bulbs on both sides, let'* hope this if finally it. I don't know exactly how 2018 got to be the year of the headlights.
Did the plug look good on the passenger side?
11-14-2018, 09:16 PM
#30
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Fortunately, the plug on the passenger'* side didn't have the same discoloration. Ironically, the passenger side was the one that I initially had trouble with, going back to last January. The bulb that went out yesterday was installed by the factory on the driver'* side and got transferred to the passenger'* side following the ill-fated LED experiment that damaged the driver'* side.