To ensure an optimal level of road illumination, each vehicle is equipped with front and rear lighting devices. However, during the operation of the vehicle, a breakdown may occur with any of the devices.

If only one headlight works in a car, then, first of all, this creates additional interference for the driver due to insufficient illumination of the roadway. IN daytime during the day it is not as noticeable as at night. In any case, the machine is considered unsuitable for further operation if at least one of the lighting devices is faulty.

If such a car is stopped, a traffic police officer may draw up a report on an administrative offense in accordance with Article 12.5 of the Administrative Code, which provides for a fine of one hundred rubles.

But the Basic Regulations for admitting a vehicle to operation allow you to continue driving such a vehicle to the nearest service station for the purpose of carrying out repair work. In this case, all precautions must be taken to avoid collisions with other cars.

In a situation with a faulty headlight, when communicating with a traffic police officer, you must refer to paragraph 2.3.1 of the Rules Road Traffic and assure the inspector that you are proceeding to the nearest point Maintenance in order to resolve the problem. Then punishment can be avoided. However, the human factor should not be excluded: if one inspector may believe the driver and let him go without a protocol, then another will fine him.

Most often, State Traffic Inspectorate employees stop a car with one inoperative headlight to issue a warning about the need to replace the lamp or the entire light fixture.

What to do if the headlight is broken but continues to work?

If the headlight is damaged, but the lamp inside is intact and continues to shine, then there is no reason to impose a fine, since the device performs its function.

If the lamp burns out, then as one of the options to solve the problem, the driver can turn on the hazard lights. In this case, other drivers will be able to see the dimensions of the car and comply with optimal level distance to the faulty car.

Each driver must decide for himself how safe it is to drive a car without at least one headlight. The situation on the road can be unpredictable, and insufficient lighting can negatively affect the car owner's ability to see any obstacle ahead. Therefore, the Ministry of Internal Affairs recommends that if any malfunction is detected, it should be eliminated in order to avoid creating an emergency situation.

Often on the road there are cars in which one headlight burns brightly, and the second - barely... Once upon a time, when my car was the “indestructible” Honda Civic EG, I didn’t even think about the cause of such a problem - well, the low beam bulb burned out a man, so he rides, oh adjusting headlights and doesn’t think twice about it - on one side the lamp is on normally, on the other the light is on - just business - he changed the lamp and was on his way...
It would seem that everything is simple if the problem really is a burnt out lamp, but it often happens that the problem is more difficult to solve than it seems at first glance. Today we’ll just talk about this problem.

Let's start, as expected, from the beginning. I don’t see any point in telling you what a headlight is. But it’s worth talking about the design of the headlights separately.

Example of a Honda Civic EK headlight. At number 5 you can see the H4 standard headlight bulb.

Inside each headlight there are several lamps, which are the actual light source. Lamps also differ in their functional use - for example, there are small lamps for side lights - low-power but very useful. In the turn signal segment they cost more than bright lamps. But the most powerful lamps are responsible for the head light, that is, low and high beam lamps. On some vehicles, the headlight design also includes fog lights. Thus, up to 5 different lamps can be concentrated in one headlight!

But today we will look at the problem mentioned in the title, which arises when using headlights with H4 lamps, which are both a near and far light source, due to the presence of two spirals and a special reflector in the design.

So, let’s say you know that your car’s headlights have H4 bulbs (low and high in one bulb). And so you are driving along the road, and suddenly you discover that one headlight shines worse than the other! First, it is necessary (and this is mandatory, for your own convenience!) to stop and look at the reason for this disgrace.

There may be two symptoms:
1. The lamp does not shine at all.
2. The lamp shines, but at half the strength, but the second headlight produces an uncharacteristically powerful beam of light.

Let's consider the first option, when “the lamp does not shine at all.” The first thing that needs to be clearly established is the condition of the lamp as a whole. It's very simple. Turn on high beam. If both headlights light up equally brightly, and when you switch back to low beam, only one headlight lights up, the low beam coil has probably burned out. This problem is resolved by replacing the lamp.

Now let's look at the second option. What we have is that one headlight burns dimly, the second, on the contrary, with double intensity. The first thing a motorist faced with a similar problem should pay attention to is the condition of the fuses.

The design features of the headlights on foreign cars (in particular Honda) allow situations in which the failure of one of the fuses leads to incomplete shutdown of the affected circuit. The fuses are located in the engine compartment, usually they are mini format, they stand next to each other, and if no one has already “corrected” anything, they have a value of 10A. It is very simple to identify a blown fuse - there is a metal strip inside it, which is clearly visible in the transparent case, and if the integrity of the strip is broken, the fuse is considered “failed”. (Hint: mini fuses rated above 7.5A often have an S-shaped metal strip inside. The strip most often burns out not in the center, but in the upper or lower arc of this S.) Replacing it with a new one will automatically restore the headlight parameters.

It happens, however, that the fuses are fine, but the problem remains (this is rare, but it does happen). In this case, we look at the condition of the “faded” lamp socket. Sometimes, due to the “fatigue” of the material, the plastic walls in the cartridge, which are an insulator for the wires, are broken, and contacts are closed through them, which leads to the effect described above.

By the way, in the event of this damage, the cartridge becomes very hot, so be careful. In fact, this circumstance, if it occurs, most likely indicates interference in the design and replacement of fuses with more powerful ones (which is not very correct). Under normal conditions, such short circuits lead to the “burning out” of the fuse. If the problem is in the cartridge and it needs to be replaced, replace it! To do this, it is not necessary to order all the wiring for the engine compartment, as shown in Honda catalogs. Honda's caring designers and planners correctly calculated that no one could make such a critical component as wires better than them, but the asking price for all the wiring of several tens of thousands of rubles for the sake of a burnt-out lamp socket is too much. Therefore, I recommend going to the nearest “spare parts for all cars” store and asking the seller “a socket for an H4 lamp” (this is the format that the whole story is about). Since this socket (H4) is the most popular and is used on a huge number of cars, there should not be any problems with the search. The cost of a cartridge will vary from 50 to 300 rubles, depending on the quality of workmanship and the greed of the seller. It is, of course, worth choosing the highest quality.

Third party H4 cartridges

Next comes a simple replacement operation. In most cases, it is painless and quick, since access is quite easy, and all that is required is care to connect the wires correctly. There is no need to solder anything - it is enough to twist the wires and securely cover the area with electrical tape. It only remains to note that this operation must be performed with the car turned off, since short circuit, which is possible when working with exposed wires, will not harm a person much, but it will definitely “blow out” the fuse, and you will have to run to the store again.

Finally, there is a third problem in this circuit that I encountered on my own car. So, the fuses are in place, the cartridge is new, but the lamp does not light, and the cartridge heats up to the melting point! What is the problem? As it turned out, the problem was with the lamp. One of the tendrils of the base broke, but not enough to come off completely, and due to the shaking it began to move away from the point of contact, which led to a short circuit and heating as a result of loose contact. The problem is eliminated by replacing the lamp, and is diagnosed when replacing the fuses, that is, in the very first case. For diagnostics, it is enough to remove the lamps and “stagger” the contacts on the base with your finger. At the same time, you must be careful not to touch the glass of the lamp, otherwise, during subsequent heating, it will burst at the point of contact.

And further. If one light bulb burns out, do not skimp, spend money on two lamps at once. It is better to change lamps in pairs - this gives a more even light, and it simply looks better in the dark. You can put a working, but old, lamp in the glove compartment and take it with you to the first valiant Traffic Police officer, who, when your lamp burns out, will stop you and say that “the headlight does not light, the fine is 500 rubles.” And then you turn on the radio louder, and to the fanfare from the speakers, replace the lamp in the headlight without leaving the car. That is, correct the defect on the spot, which should automatically invalidate the policeman’s claims.

Honda Vodam.ru

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6.12.2008, 22:02

The light bulb is working and the fuse is also working. I checked the voltage in the low beam terminals with a multimeter - about 10 V. I connect the lamp (extending the wires for convenience) - it does not light, I check the ends of the wires (connected to the lamp) with a multimeter - 0 V. I disconnect one end - about 10 V. I did the same operations with the high beam - it lights up without problems, and I connected the ends of the high beam wire to the low beam terminals - the low beam lights up... Please advise what to do

6.12.2008, 22:31

Shake the wiring - somewhere the terminal block has oxidized, or there is a twist

6.12.2008, 23:07

Could there be something wrong with the relay?

6.12.2008, 23:07

6.12.2008, 23:34

So there is one for both headlights, from one contact. Behind it is wiring for two fuses and an output. Look at the connector on the fuse block. I would first determine which wire is not connecting, + or -, then determine what the problem is - in the wire itself, or nothing is coming to it..

The minus is normal, because the distant one works with it. Without a fuse, the multimeter does not detect the voltage at the ends of the wiring at all...

We remember school physics (oh, that was a long time ago).
Once, when a load is connected, the voltage drops sharply, it means that there is a resistance (several ohms) in the circuit from the battery to the headlight terminals, at which the entire load drops instead of the headlight bulb. Such resistance is usually “poor contact”, a loose connection under a bolt or twist, etc.

Shake up the wiring (as already said) - look at all the connections along the way from the battery to the headlight. More likely - connections "to the body", they turn sour sooner.

Electronics is the science of contacts, unscrew and screw back as much as possible electrical connections. For prevention. Sooner or later you will come across that contact that eats up the load of the headlight.

Thank you, that’s convincing. I’ll shake up the wiring more thoroughly.

Rogue

7.12.2008, 10:47

More likely - connections "to the body", they turn sour sooner.

If the side lights and low beam are turned on and the bulbs burn at full intensity,

I checked the voltage in the low beam terminals with a multimeter - about 10 V.

7.12.2008, 23:47

then this is a missing ground on the headlight housing. Take a piece of wire, connect it to the battery negative, and press the other end to the headlight housing. For example, to the side light cartridge housing. If everything works, then the disease is widespread. You can try turning on the marker and rotation at the same time. If the parking light blinks instead of the turn signal light, then the ground is definitely sick.

The dimensions and turn signals work as expected. And if the high beam on this headlight is on, how could there be a reason for the mass?