2002Q headlamp blown

[ahmed_wasim]

Hi,I dropped my car for an oil change at Infiniti and when I picked the car up I noticed that my driver side headlamp is not working. The next day I called Infiniti and they said its a xenon bulb and will cost me 400$ parts and labor but they didn't had it in stock.Today I went there to have the bulb installed and the head light is still not working. Now they are saying its the control unit thats blown due to bad bulb and I have to pay another 1000$ to have it replaced.Does anyone else has this problem?Wasim.

[Q451990]

Sounds like the balast? Hopefully you don't have to pay for the bulb too... they should have diagnosed it correctly instead of trying a new bulb unless both were bad.

Heath

[marksport]

Ahmed, one of the ballast on my Q45 went as well. Best bet is to look for one on ebay as they will run about $100 or get a Hella or Philips ballast for around the same. You will need to do a little conversion on the wiring. The Q45 ballast are a little rare as they are unique to the Q45 headlight. The bulbs, they really hosed you as you can get them new OEM units for about $60. I have about 6-8 of these bulbs that are little use to me as I run higher Kelvin rating and they aren't even worth selling anymore. I keep them around for testing or doing HID conversions on my cargo van.

[ahmed_wasim]

Guys,

Other lights like day time running, high beam are working. If the control unit is gone shouldn't they all be gone?

My lights were working before Infiniti dealer changed the oil. Could they mess it up or its just a conincidence? I called them the same day and told them that light are not working after an oil change and they gave me an estimate to 52$ to fix it. I thought its no big deal. When I got there they worked on the car for an hour and then told me that it will actually cost 359$ but they don't have bulb in stock. They ordered the bulb for me and now they are telling me that my bulb was bad and the swtich was still on so it burned the control unit. They should have told me to turn the lights off.

Wasim.

[ahmed_wasim]

Hi Mark,

Will this fit my car? If yes does it require any mods to Q.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors...ZWDVW

[marksport]

Ahmed, that unit can work on your car, but it is not the factory ballast for the Q45. It is for the I35, Qx4, ect. The Q45 ballast uses an internal ignitor pack, whereas that unit you see the black block the size of a relay, it is the external ignitor. You probably won't need to do any major modification. This is what I would do:

1. Disconnect the battery. Remove the bumper cover and headlight assembly. Get a copy of the FSM. Plan to spend a 1/2 a day doing the entire work.

2. Disconnect the factory plug going into the ballast pack at the bottom of the headlight. Check to see if it is compatible with that pack. If it is, simply plug it in. If not, you will have to cut the connector off the headlight harness and the ballast pack, and install new connectors. I would go with these weatherpack:



They are easily available, and if you need to go back to the factory connector, get another weatherpack and connect it together. Weatherpack connectors install easy as you just need to strip the wire, slide the weatherproof boot on and insert the terminals. Make sure you have the correct polarity before you insert the terminals.

3. Remove the connector off the old ballast pack and keep it off to the side if possible. You can remove the old pack by first removing the aluminum connector cover, unscrewing the 3 bolts that hold the pack to the headlight and carefully pulling the connector wires out. This is quite tricky and installing a new pack is just as difficult. If the ballast pack is really dead, you can also just cut the wires and pull each piece from their location. Otherwise that connector can stay inside the headlight. Consider getting a rubber bulb cover from a Yamaha R1 or Honda, or most other bikes. This will keep dust and moisture out of the headlight. Connect the new plug onto the bulb. Install the headlight, and find a new mounting point for the ballast pack as it may likely not be possible at the factory location. Test to make sure it powers up correctly. Put the rest of the front back together.

[ahmed_wasim]

Thanks a lot,

I am trying to call different junk yards that have Q45s and ask them for ballast but no one knows about this part. Is it part of the head light or is it before headlight?

I am not technical so please bare with me.

Regards,Wasim.

[ahmed_wasim]

Is it also call headlight ignitor

[Q451990]

I would absolutely download your FSM if you haven't done so at http://www.phatg20.net

Check out http://www.car-part.com - there appears to be one place in Canada that has several of them. I searched under "headlamp assembly"

Heath

[marksport]

Those guys on car-part site want about $800 per headlight. I know as they are local to me. You can get the headlight on ebay for 1/2 that or much less. Cheaper to get a ballast pack and do what I mentioned above.



Picture of the bulb, a regular Philips D2S part number 85122 rated at 4300K



Pictured are 4 of the 6 ballast packs I have worked with.

The left one is a factory Q45 ballast pack made by Stanley. On the right of it is Hella Ballast pack that has the bulb connector modified for an aftermarket style connections. The OEM style Hella uses the standard push-turn D2S/D2R connector you see on the other 3 units. The 3rd is a factory Lexus/Toyota made by Denso. The last one I think came out of an I30/I35 and I think is used in other Infiniti/Nissan car, made by Matsu****a, has Nissan on the label.



This picture is the factory Q45 ballast connector. It is fairly simple. Two terminals inside with no tabs. 3 tabs on the outside.



This is the Hella connector which is actually the same connector found on cars that use the 9006 Bulbs.



These two pics are of the Denso Toyota/Lexus ballast. The simplest connector out of all of these. They are just spade connectors. The factory uses a connector block, but spade connectors would be cheapest and quickest.



This last one is the Nissan ballast pack, the most complex connector as I count 5 internal tabs. Possibly that the headlight has other similar connectors with the internal tabs in different location to prevent incorrectly plugging the harness to the other connector/ballast pack. These harness are normally color coded as well.

All these units you should be able to get the connector/pigtails from the dealer if you can't locate a donor car from an auto recycler. The best option if you can't locate the Q45 ballast is to go with either the Hella or the Toyota/Lexus/Denso. The Hella connector is longer and allows for more room to mount the ballast as you can't mount it to the headlight like the factory unit is without building some sort of a bracket. The Toyota/Lexus/Denso has shorter connector and will have to be closer to the bulb, and you can't run that wire inside the headlight. Good thing is that you just need simple spade connectors. I wouldn't even bother with the last ballast as the seperate ignitor just adds complexity to the repair and the connector is useless.

Whatever you do, remember never power up a ballast pack without a bulb in it as it will arc up and short. These packs power up at 25,000 Volts and level off to 85Volts once they are warmed up. That's enough to give you a good shock any way you look at it. Be careful to to ground/short out the ballast housing at it can fry it. And watch out for reverse polarity, tho these units have safety feature that shut off in case polarity is reversed, it's not a good thing for them.

[Q451990]

Wow Mark! I think you may be our resident HID expert! What are your thoughts on aftermarket conversions... say on a 1990 Q?

Heath

[marksport]

I was going to talk about that. When I bought the Hella conversion kit years ago, I cost me nearly $1000. It is one of the best kits out there because of the components. I had long discussions with people who sold these and the most important part was the focal point of the bulbs. Many retrofits and kits that were available around then weren't properly made and some would illuminate the sky or would be a half moon lighting up the side of the road rather than directly in front of your car where you need it the most. These days, Chinese made kits have flooded the market and prices are pretty much rock bottom. Some of these kits have questionable reliability, but the good thing is that pretty much all of them have a year warranty and the price of the kits can be cheap enough to buy a couple of them for the same price of an OEM ballast pack alone. There are some kits that use OEM Philips/Matsush-ita ballast that cost a bit more than the chinese made kit but getting one of those would give you peace of mind more than anything, tho the bulbs are likely chinese or korean made.



I run 5000K Philips D2s 85123 in the low beam projectors, H1 rebased 5000K bulbs in the high beam with Hella ballasts, Hella DE Micro Xenon projector driving lights and Hella DE micro fog lights with a 3000K HID conversion kit.

[marksport]

Aparently, the factory Q45 ballast are somewhat known to fail. There is a technical advisory about that.

[xerexabante]

Mark,

I want to know where and how much did you get your bodykit?

[ahmed_wasim]

Thanks a lot Mark,

I called everyone on car-parts and no one is willing to sell ballast without a headlight.

I have checked with Infiniti of scottsdale and they'll sell it to me for 304$. I'll order one from them and have dealer install it for me. Do I have to go to dealer or any good shop should be able to do the job?

Wasim.

[StarPD]

Aparently, the factory Q45 ballast are somewhat known to fail. There is a technical advisory about that.

My'05 F50 owner's manual specifically warns against turning the headlamps on for brief periods. Doing so will drastically shorten the life of the very expensive HID low beam bulb and probably the ballast, and I think it will NOT be covered under warranty. For that reason, I do not use the automatic function on my headlights, (which will turn them on and off going under tunnels and bridges and in covered parking lots, unless you set the delay for long periods), but rather only turn them on manually when I intend to keep them on for a while at night. It's best to keep them off unless and until you need them to drive at night and will be leaving them on for a while. I think that used properly, they should last a long time.

[marksport]

The ballast and bulb need to be warmed up, which is why you will notice a bright white colour which will turn to a white-yellow. If you flicker them on and off, that will wear out and lead to eventual failure. The good thing is that it's normally the bulb to go first, and bulbs are cheap. I've got 8 of these oem bulbs that I have sitting around here because it's not even worth my time to try and sell them anymore. I also run HID in my highbeams, and tho I use them for driving on clear roads, I sometimes flick them on, and they are cheap enough to replace when one of the components fail.

[StarPD]

The ballast and bulb need to be warmed up, which is why you will notice a bright white colour which will turn to a white-yellow. If you flicker them on and off, that will wear out and lead to eventual failure. The good thing is that it's normally the bulb to go first, and bulbs are cheap. I've got 8 of these oem bulbs that I have sitting around here because it's not even worth my time to try and sell them anymore. I also run HID in my highbeams, and tho I use them for driving on clear roads, I sometimes flick them on, and they are cheap enough to replace when one of the components fail.

If they're cheap enough, I'd lie to have a pair for "just in case".I assume the 2002 through 2005 are the same.Are yours OEM?And how much?Thanks

[marksport]

George, all of mine are oem, Prob about $35 shipped.

[StarPD]

George, all of mine are oem, Prob about $35 shipped.

I presume that's each.I'll contact you when my next check comes in in August, and will take two so I have spares. Is a money order okay?

Thanks a million.

[ahmed_wasim]

Hi Mark,

I'll need two of them. If you send me your address I'll send you a cheque or if you have a paypal account I can pay you online.

Wasim.