Hey Everyone,

I just picked up a 2009 Sport, pearl white with the 6-speed manual, for HPDE & DD duties. I had to de-flood her at the dealership because they couldn't get her started and were just going to wholesale her, so I got her for the wholesale price :-D. She's pretty much all stock beyond a few modifications to the lighting.



So far she's been a lot of fun and seems to pull strongly. I cleaned out the standing water in the taillights mostly following some of the guides here, replaced the coils with BHR ones and did the plugs and wires after hearing what seemed like a high-RPM misfire/roughness, but the biggest outstanding issue is the headlight low-beams. Sometimes, they'll turn on just fine, but most of the time one or both will fail to light up. The P.O. replaced them with what looks like a fairly standard HID retrofit kit with 55W ballasts, and I assume that the ballasts are going bad or have gone bad, so I ordered some 35W replacements that look like they're the same (give or take a few stickers) off of Amazon.


I don't understand all the wiring changes here yet, but the connectors looked to be the same, so hopefully they'll basically just plug in, and be more reliable at 35W. One specific oddity I don't understand yet is the presence of a pair of "jumper" wires that ran from the blue and white connector shown in the first image below to spade connectors taped into what looks like an OEM mazda 2-pin connector with a green and a purple wire shown in the second picture.



Does anyone have any ideas or experience with these retrofit HID kits and could shed some light (hehe) on this wiring?

 

I would buy the regular bulbs that are supposed to be in there and see if you have the same problems. Then you’ll have an idea as to where your problem is. Either the cars harness or your kit.

 

I have no idea what was wrong with the HID system, but even with a new fuse, relay, ballasts and bulbs, it would not work consistently, so thats exactly what I did - back to the halogen H7's and its been fine. So, the problem must have been in the wiring somewhere - just not quite sure where.