Years ago, we installed an HID headlight on my BMW to save me some juice so I could run heated gear without risking draining my battery. It was great – super bright, dependable, and definitely took less juice to run.
Last week, I noticed that it wasn’t always coming on the way it was supposed to. So I checked the batter connections – a little loose, so I tightened everything up and figured all was well. Until the next morning when my HID refused to come on. Again. And then it came back on again for my commute home. Lather, rinse, repeat for the next day. Interestingly, the HID worked when I flipped the high beams on – that would have been great if it wasn’t retina-scorching bright for oncoming traffic.
After some other fussing around, the husband decided to just put the regular headlight bulb back in and rip out the HID. It seems my bike killed my HID by vibrating it to death.
Next up – an LED headlight made by the same folks who made my aux lights (incidentally, those were bright enough to light things up nicely for darkish morning commutes even without my main headlight). The old-school version still sucks too much juice off the battery. But at least I can see where I’m going until I get a new LED headlight.