'97 Civic HX, 2 Door, 5-speed

Backstory: A few years back, I replaced my headlights with a set of HID bulbs, I believe they are 5500 k. Around the same time, I installed a set of fog lights, and wired them through my low-beam's power (rather than the battery, on the off chance I forget to turn them off one day/night). Up until recently, I didn't have any problems with my lighting. As of the last few weeks though, my front passenger headlight (low and high beams), when turned on, is very dim, to the point that it is barely as bright as a 1500k bulb. It may be worth noting, I wired my fog lights through the front passenger light as well, but they are always at full intensity.

A workaround I have found is to pop my trunk, and briefly "wiggle" the plastic socket behind the headlight casing, generally this will restore the headlight to its full intensity. I have tried replacing the socket, to no avail. I tried re-wiring the foglights, to make sure that I didn't splice something wrong originally, and I checked to make sure there weren't any loose connections that could be shorting out the light.

I don't believe it is simply the socket being loose, as once I wiggle it, I can drive around with it just fine, no amount of bumpiness has yet to cause the light to go dim again. The problem seems to arise whenever I turn the car on (or rather, the lights). Turning my headlights off and then back on usually causes it to go dim, as does switching between high and low beams. Turning my fog lights on/off doesn't seem to affect it in any way.

Has anyone had a similar issue, or can offer any advice? It gets tedious having to pop my hood every time I want to have both my headlights working, heh.

 

When it is dim, measure the voltage going into the HID ballast, at the ballast. If you have more than 12 volts, the bulb or the ballast is bad.