Low beam headlights out 2007 M35x

[trood]

Hi, My 2007 M35 has 220K miles. I noticed the other day that the right (I think) low beam was out. Now both are. Seems odd that both bulbs would go out within a day or so. Any thoughts or troubleshooting suggestions?

[EdBwoy]

Heh, that seems like the perfect scenario to me. They were installed together, served together and called it quits together.

Unless you think they should have lasted longer than they have?...
Did you recently start driving on extremely rough roads?

[trood]

I did drive on some gravel roads recently, but only for short distance and at low speeds. Hate to pay to get bulbs replaced if those aren't the issue.

[Ilya]

Welcome to the forum.

Are these the original lights? Do you know? The other thing you could try is have your head next to the headlights and have someone turn the car on/lights on. You SHOULD hear a faint buzzing at least initially if the lights have been off for a while...that's the ballast powering up. If you don't hear it, your ballasts are dead and/or dying.

[Larz]

10 years is a long time - especially for xenon bulbs. All headlamp bulbs begin to lose lumens after a few years so it's worth a try to replace them with updated bulbs. No way to guarantee that is the fix, but those old bulbs are not performing as they should with so many years on them and even with new ballasts (I doubt both would fail so close together), you will still have less than proper vision with the old bulbs.
D2S bulbs are available nearly everywhere. You can buy them for as little as $10 each if you want rubbish, or I recommend buying from The Retrofit Source - one of only a few places that still gets their stock direct from the factory instead of a middleman. This eliminates the chances of buying cheap knock-off bulbs labelled as quality bulbs.
There are videos on YouTube that show exactly how to replace these bulbs. The procedure is the same for G series and M series.

[Ilya]

Actually, I think us 3 mods jumped the gun. Do you even have xenon/HID lights? Or is your car a base model?

[trood]

I doubt they're xenon, pretty danged dim. It's an M35x. Bought it used, so not sure. So there's ballasts for each side? Would seem highly unlikely they'd both fail within a couple of days of each other.

[Ilya]

Are the lights really yellow? Look like lights on a 1994 Civic? If so, you're not xenon/HID and thus don't have ballasts and can go to walmart and pick up new bulbs for like $20 total. If they are more modern looking and more 'whiteish' then you have xenon and have ballasts.