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High beam issue

1957 Views 12 Replies 3 Participants Last post by  chrisf2012, 
DaffyDuck
Hi,

Sorry if this is cheeky (being my first post), but I have an issue with my car at the moment that’s got me scratching my head.

Its the 2.0 CRD (I’m in the UK) and it has 160,000 miles on it. I’ve owned it for a year with no issues other than having to replace the drivers side headlight connector as it had melted. When the bumper was off I could see someone had already changed the passenger side. I put in two new headlights (H4’s 130% brighter) and I’ve had no issues until I went to to turn the high beams on a couple of weeks later.

I flicked the stalk forward and the light comes on the dash to indicate the high beams are on, but headlights go out, although I think the sidelights (light below) remain on. No other electrical issues - and car runs as expected for the mileage.

I attempted to read it through autodoctor with an ELM327 OBD on my laptop and it said there were no stored codes.

Can anyone help? I would appreciate any information very much.

kind regards
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Aleks
Brighter means more current usually which is heat and melting plastic.
Without diagnosis could be bulb, holder, connections, wiring, insulation, TIPM circuit protection

The headlights are not the greatest though adequate. If you fix everything and want to upgrade to 'brighter' bulbs I would advise LED CANBUS adjusted bulbs.
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DaffyDuck
Hi,

Thank you for the reply. I chose these bulbs due to the price being the same as standard ones (on offer at time of purchase). If I can resolve this issue I will certainly look into the suggested bulbs. The lights that were in before were standard ones and upon changing is when i

I have cut off the melted headlight connector block and put in a new H4 one, I carefully made sure I connect the three wires to the correct place. The lights worked fine after this until recently.

I’ve looked through the forums and online and I’m wondering if a TIPM reset needs to be done. I have no Dodge/Jeep/Chrysler dealers near me though which may be difficult.

Thanks again
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Aleks
The TIPM protection kicks in whenever a circuit is defective by shutting off the power. Before working on any electrics including bulbs the manual advises the owner to first disconnect the battery.
If you have not shorted anything then disconnecting the battery and draining the residual voltages from any capacitance will effect a reset. Give it a couple of hours with the disconnected battery leads joined together.
If that fails then there is a workaround described on this forum of using the working side to run a signal wire to a relay to power the other.
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C
Check the power consumption rating of the standard bulbs versus the brighter ones you purchased. The TIPM is monitoring power draw of the headlights and expects to see the draw for standard halogen bulbs. If it sees an "abnormal" draw, it'll react by shutting off power to the headlights. This has been a persistent problem with those installing LED lighting...their lower current draw makes the TIPM think there's a problem and people can't figure out why the bulbs won't work.
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DaffyDuck
Aleks said:
The TIPM protection kicks in whenever a circuit is defective by shutting off the power. Before working on any electrics including bulbs the manual advises the owner to first disconnect the battery.
If you have not shorted anything then disconnecting the battery and draining the residual voltages from any capacitance will effect a reset. Give it a couple of hours with the disconnected battery leads joined together.
If that fails then there is a workaround described on this forum of using the working side to run a signal wire to a relay to power the other.
Click to expand...
Brilliant cheers! I did have the negative terminal off when doing the work. I will try the battery terminals tonight. The trouble with using the good side to feed the other, is the fact both lights are perfectly fine when on low beam but both out on high beam (whether that’s clicked on or flicking them to flash).

Thanks again for replying with the information!
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DaffyDuck
chrisf2012 said:
Check the power consumption rating of the standard bulbs versus the brighter ones you purchased. The TIPM is monitoring power draw of the headlights and expects to see the draw for standard halogen bulbs. If it sees an "abnormal" draw, it'll react by shutting off power to the headlights. This has been a persistent problem with those installing LED lighting...their lower current draw makes the TIPM think there's a problem and people can't figure out why the bulbs won't work
Click to expand...
Thanks for the reply. The old bulbs are long gone now. I think they were Bosch ones and the new ones are by Ring, but I could always purchase another set of standard bulbs and see if that works!

For reference these are the bulbs I have in at the moment -

Error Page 404 - Ring automotive

www.ringautomotive.com www.ringautomotive.com
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C
I have a set of regular bulbs and just checked their rating...it's the same as those of the Ring bulbs you purchased, so it's probably not an issue with the TIPM seeing an odd current draw.

When you turn on the high beams, do they AND the regular headlights go out so you have nothing coming out of your headlights? And does this affect both of them or just the one you recently repaired?
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Aleks
Both high beams was new information. That could be a number of things from the switch onwards, probably an earth or wiring insulation.

The current was about one beam and melting holders.
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DaffyDuck
Hi, very sorry I didn’t see the replies notification!

When I get into the car, start it up and turn the headlights on, they come on fine, I drive along and everything works as it should. When driving at night I turn from dipped to high beam (main beam not low beam) and the lights turn off, leaving just the little bulbs below the headlight bulbs illuminated I think they’re called sidelights or parking lights?


So when driving or at stand still every other light will work (indicators, brakes, front and rear fog, hazards etc) but as soon as I push the stalk forward, the blue light will come on the dash but the headlights go out completely (but the little bulbs stay on, they’re at the bottom of the headlight cluster).

I went out and brought some standard H4 bulbs from Halfords, took off the bumper etc and replaced them, they did exactly the same. I looked at the grounds but couldn’t see anything obvious?

Thanks so much for the replies
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Aleks
How much time do you have before inspection?
Not sure a FIAT dealer would be of much help to you or an economic option.
Perhaps look for an auto electrician to discuss it with. Old school tinkers who rebuild alternators might know or advise someone.
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DaffyDuck
Aleks said:
How much time do you have before inspection?
Not sure a FIAT dealer would be of much help to you or an economic option.
Perhaps look for an auto electrician to discuss it with. Old school tinkers who rebuild alternators might know or advise someone.
Click to expand...
About 3 days haha, it’s just typical of my luck for it to have it’s issues a week before my MOT. I will speak with the garage on Monday and see what they say. Thanks for all the help.
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C
If you're losing all of your headlights as soon as you pull/push the high beam stalk and both sides "failed" at the same time, then it's likely not a grounding issue since according to the wiring schematic the left and right front headlights ground at different points.

I would find it a little hard to believe that both headlight drivers in the TIPM failed simultaneously. I've heard of failures but they were one side or the other, not both. That would direct us more towards the control side of things.

The Caliber utilizes a "Steering Control Module", which is the body that the turn signal stalk and wiper stalk attach to. It's electronic, sending commands you're inputting via the stalks over the low speed LINBUS to the instrument cluster, which then sends them along CANBUS to the TIPM. Realistically any of those components could be at fault, and the only way to diagnose this is by viewing the CANBUS network traffic using a scan tool.

Unfortunately modern cars have made the simplest things so complicated that they can be very hard to diagnose. :(
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