major issues with fog lights

[riod70]

hey guys and girls. i have a 2006 chrysler 300 srt8 and was looking to change out the factory fog light bulb for something a little nicer. i decided to go with a xenon hid h10 9145 bulb that i bought on ebay for only 20.00 . it was a simple plug and play.the original bulb i believe is 65 watts. the new ones were 100w.long story short i jump in the car and get about 3 miles down the road when i start to smell a heavy smoke. i pull over and my driver side fog light and internal plastic is all on fire. thank god i had a small fire extinguisher that was given to me as a gift in the car. i was able to quickly put it out but now i have a couple hundred dollars worth of damage. the company was Autogrimming on amazon marketplace.

[MADDOG]

You don't mention installing a ballast for the HID bulb. Did you? If not, that's the main reason you had a problem. You don't drive HID bulbs right off the harness. You need a ballast in-between the factory harness and the bulb.

[riod70]

maddog the lights i purchased were a simple switch out no extra harness. just plugged into the the stock connectors. they were identical to the stock.

[MADDOG]

You say "hid" in your description. The base of a HID bulb for the foglights is the same as the halogen bulb base. So if you did, in fact, install HID bulbs without a ballast, they caused the failure.

An electrical ballast is a device intended to limit the amount of current in an electric circuit. A familiar and widely used example is the inductive ballast used in fluorescent lamps, to limit the current through the tube, which would otherwise rise to destructive levels due to the tube's negative resistance characteristic.


Ballasts vary in design complexity. They can be as simple as a series resistor or reactor, capacitors, or a combination thereof or as complex as electronic ballasts used with fluorescent lamps and HIDs.

[fieldsken1]

what happened is that he used a 100w bulb on wiring made for 50w and he did not use a relay for the extra power therefore wires burn up

[MADDOG]

He might have gotten away with a 100W halogen but given the short time between install and failure, and the fact that the op said "hid" in his description of the bulb, I'll stick with my analysis until I can see a pic that shows otherwise.

[riod70]

thanks so much for your input, im just going to go with a reputable hid kit . almost lost my car over cheap 20.00 fog lights. i now have to replace my front bumper, lights and wire for the hood. could have been worst. appreciate my extended 300 fam.

[Torian]

Originally Posted by riod70

thanks so much for your input, im just going to go with a reputable hid kit . almost lost my car over cheap 20.00 fog lights. i now have to replace my front bumper, lights and wire for the hood. could have been worst. appreciate my extended 300 fam.

Absolutely go the true HID route. I have installed aftermarket HIDs in my last three cars until I got one that came standard with it. It is a little more expensive initially, and requires some extra installation work, but it is work it. I have had great results with Phillips kits.

The colored "HID" bulbs are just deceptive marketing for the most part. No such thing as HID without ballasts.

[JTSRT8]

The problem is you went higher wattage. I have lots of experience of burning wires & other damage from doing that. You can get the look you want not going full true HID, just have to match color & keep it at the stock 45-55w.