Car's rejecting headlight bulbs

[nike001]

About two months ago while driving, I noticed that my drivers side CBI bulb was flickering. Mainly on acceleration/deceleration or harder corners.

Swapped the problem bulb to the passenger side to see if it followed the bulb - it did. So now the bad bulb is in the passenger side and doing the flickering. I contacted MotiveMods (who I got the bulbs from) and they found no problems with the bulb while one of them ran it in their personal vehicle. I ran a normal OE Phillips bulb in place of the bad bulb in the meantime. I had no problems at all running this set-up for 4+ weeks. MotiveMods somehow ended up sending me a new CBI bulb anyways.

Last night then, I put my new bulb in my passenger side and took the temporary Phillips bulb out. After that, I tested the lights and the drivers side was flickering a little bit. Then tonight while driving, my drivers side headlight started doing the SAME SHIT.

That bulb has been in there since I swapped my old bulbs left-to-right with NO PROBLEMS. Now since I swap an unassociated bulb out (passenger side), now my drivers side acts up?!

I seriously have no idea what's going on.

[Crestwood1001]

Is it possible in any way that the cbi bulbs contacts are slightly different, or don't seat as tightly as the Phillips bulb? There's really no way for a car to "reject" bulbs. Spec wise what is the difference between the two? I'm firing from the hip here but is it possible that the cbi bulb has a slightly higher power draw that could effect the ballast/igniter, combo?
A quick google search does not really turn anything up, it has to be bulb related, but for it to happen like that makes no sense. I think this is gonna be a quirk of your car man

[nike001]

It doesn't reject the bulbs - I just had no other way of wording a title for my problem.

There shouldn't be anything wrong with these bulbs. They're Orsam's.. which are pretty much on par with Phillips bulbs overall quality

[JupiterBMW]

Hmm interesting. I'm wondering if you're having other issues that coincide with the bulbs. I don't remember the specs of the CBI bulbs, but I have the SVS bulbs and they're very similar. Wattage is OEM so nothing should really change. Color won't effect anything, but the lumens rating is different than OEM. Not sure if that'll change anything. Perhaps the ballasts are overheating and clipping out on thermal overload. I honestly don't know. Just my couple of pennies. Good luck.

I will say this, none of this stuff has been happening with my SVS bulbs.


Sent from my iPhone 4/4S hybrid on Tapatalk...

[Crestwood1001]

It doesn't reject the bulbs - I just had no other way of wording a title for my problem.

There shouldn't be anything wrong with these bulbs. They're Orsam's.. which are pretty much on par with Phillips bulbs overall quality

I know, that's why I put it in quotes... Never heard of nor have I seen anything like this in google searches that wasn't the bulb/bulbs, idk man if your other bulbs work then maybe chalk it up to a bulb issue.... There's only so many things and you have eliminated most of them with your other bulbs being ok

[nike001]

My first plan is to take out passenger side and put the phillips back in. If that doesn't work, I'll put the CBI back in.. but switch sides. After that I'll try swapping ballasts.

Or just swap them both out for phillips bulbs and see what happens.

Maybe sell these and get the SVS bulbs. But I'd hate to sell someone these and one have problems. But.. it shouldn't have a problems since MotiveMods said my other bulb had/has no issues.

[Crestwood1001]

My first plan is to take out passenger side and put the phillips back in. If that doesn't work, I'll put the CBI back in.. but switch sides. After that I'll try swapping ballasts.

Or just swap them both out for phillips bulbs and see what happens.

Maybe sell these and get the SVS bulbs. But I'd hate to sell someone these and one have problems. But.. it shouldn't have a problems since MotiveMods said my other bulb had/has no issues.

Agreed, I would have said maybe they were full of it so they didn't have to replace it... But they did replace it... Weird

[nike001]

I know. I told them about this problem in hopes for advice but they told me it has to be something electrical.

I'm going to swap an old ballast in tonight and see what that does.

MotiveMods emailed me again saying I should probably just return the new bulb for my old bulb since it colorshifted already. I'm going to avoid that since it seems unnecessary because my bulbs are hardly worn in and I'm not wasting money on shipping again