No lights when high beams turned on

[saskye30]

Looking for some suggestions on what may be the issue...

Last weekend on a road trip, I discovered that turning on my high beams turns off low beams (and the high beams don't turn on - pretty exciting to be driving at night and turn on the highbeams expecting to see more and see nothing!).

This is the case for the 'flash' or push to turn on function of the high beams. Of note, the next day, they worked again, briefly. Could this just be a bad ground issue? Another thing i found was maybe its the head light switch itself?

I did not find posts exactly like what im experiencing, my appologies if i missed a post with the exact issue as this.

I will be honest, i have not looked at the bulbs yet (its cold outside, and would like to minimize my time out there).

Many thanks in advance.
'87 325is autotragic

[AndrewBird]

The low beams are supposed to turn off when you turn the high beams on. However, the high beams not turning on at all is obviously a problem. I would start by checking the for power at the headlights with the high beams on. If you are getting power, then the bulbs are bad. If not, check the headlight relay. Something odd could be going on with it. Next would to check the switch.

[saskye30]

I am pretty sure the high beams were staying on when i adjusted the headlights during the summer. This car has had the upgrade from sealed beams to halogens (before i got it). I thought it maybe a relay aswell.

Is it possible that both high beam bulbs blew at the same time?

[FLG]

If it was upgraded and you (at one point) had both your highs and lows on then check the fuse box.. To have them both come on you need to run a wire from the low beam relay to the high.. Its possible that wire is loose.

Also it's possible that both highs are blown... But doubtful. Also check fuses, could be corrosion/lose fuse.

Nitro, on a sealed beam car the lows stay on but switch to a different filament inside the bulb.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

[turnerfreak570]

you need to jump pin 30 on the low beam relay to same pin on the high beam relay and voila. problem solved. i did this for my hid smileys and it works great.

[saskye30]

Just to give an update, I finally got around to visually inspecting the bulbs, they all appear to be functional. I had checked the fuses initially, but i will reseat them again just incase. Will try to figure out how to test the relays also.

Winter will not go away, it has since turned cold again and even more snowy since i got around to checking the bulbs, hopefully next week i can troubleshoot this further.

Thanks for the replies.

[saskye30]

Another update...

Replaced the high/low relays, same issue. I pulled the bulbs out again, and noticed that the H1 bulbs have little 'fuses' on them, which on both left and right bulbs were burnt. Of note, the bulbs in there were 100w.. is that normal, or too much? I could only find 55w H1 bulbs, put them in, but still no worky! :(

My question now is, the low beams are H4, dual filament. I inspected those for broken filaments but didnt see anything wrong with them ( much like the H1). Can the H4 be the same as H1, little built in fuses (but not visible) that blow before the actual light emitting filament does?

Thanks for reading :O

[Mr. Burns]

I had this issue with mine aswell, and it has to do with the requirement of needing DRL's in certain provinces.


In my case, the shop that performed the DRL conversion did a true hackjob that didn't last the test of time.
I had to eventually re-hardwire everything back to the fusebox, and switch so it's back to normal (no longer have DRL's lol)

I really hope this isn't the case for you...it was a $hit time not being able to cruise in the e30 in the nightime for some time.

[saskye30]

Thanks for the info! The car doesnt have DRL on it tho.. at least not functional DRL lol.