The guy I bought the car from evidently put in an aftermarket HID kit but instead of the easy-to-replace bulbs, he put in these god-awful things that require removing the airbox just to look at.


Here's the bulb itself, fairly standard right?


There's two wires coming out the back that go through the headlight contraption:


The two ends of the wires (and as you can see, they go through the back of the headlight, so I have no clue how to replace them):


Thanks for any help

 

That's your standard cheap, Chinese HID bulb.

Here: h7 hid kit replacement bulb | eBay

 

Bleh, you're right those are the crappy kind. At least the bulbs are cheap. If my car didn't have 162k on it, I might think about changing it. Oh well. Thanks for your help! Found a pair for $10 on amazon.

 

lol. NP.

 

Uhhh wait... So I bought set of replacement bulbs. Nice and cheap...
Well, in my original post, the auto-ad thing popped up . Can somebody that knows about HID bulbs confirm that this adapter is all I need to install to purchase "normal" HID bulbs that look more or less like ?
This adapter would make changing bulbs SO much easier assuming I could use the more expensive bulbs. However I know so little about headlight electronics I dunno if all this is compatible.

 

You can use the pigtail pictured to adapt the AMP connections found on most aftermarket ballasts to D2S. You'll also need a centering ring to locate the bulb in the projector housing. The base of the D2S bulb is not the same as the H7 bulb you're using now. Personally, I see no reason to use the expensive D2S bulbs in the stock halogen projectors. Yes, the quality of the bulb is much better, but that is only half of the equation. By using a better bulb in a projector made for halogen optics, you're not going to get much improvement as if you used projectors made for HID.

 

So I could do it if I really felt like doing the work but in reality it's not worth the effort because I wouldn't see a huge improvement?
I mean, I live in the middle of a city so I don't need to see OUT that well. And as long as people can see ME, I call it good. I'm more concerned with how tough or easy it will be to change the bulbs. And like I said, this car doesn't have 30 more years on it so I don't need to be concerned TOO much.

edit Also, I get the new bulbs tomorrow so I'll do what I can to put them in and see how tough it actually is. Maybe I'm making the H7 bulb change to be more of a hassle than it really is.

 

Okay, I replaced the bulbs. I'll admit it was fairly straightforward but there were some definite tight spaces.
Here's the problem, now NEITHER of my lights work at ALL. Is there a common point of failure when replacing them? Is there some reset button for the ballasts I need to press? I can't have got 2 bad bulbs. And when I took apart the one the first time to see what it looked like then put it back the exact same way, it didn't work at all. So clearly I'm missing some piece.
I know all the ends are connected, I just don't know what final issue I have to resolve.

edit I should also mention I did NOT touch the bulbs with my bare hands and I made sure to put the black wire on the new bulbs where the black wire was in the old bulb. The positive wire was blue with the old one and red with the new one, I hope that doesn't matter...

 

Well I figured it out. Turns out the connectors going into the ballast need to be upside-down. The little locking pins are now on the wrong side so it really makes no sense, but the lights work...

I was watching this video and he mentioned about how if the lights don't come on, try switching that connection. Lo and behold...

I bet real mechanics on here scoff at Eric the Car Guy, but watching his vids has really helped me a number of times.

Anyway, case closed.