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Mk3 Titanium X Owners - Potential Xenon Headlight Issue


tomo2001
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I'm not too bothered either but just noticed it when car was defrosting the other day. Thought it might have been after work by Ford dealer.

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Hi, I am still going to bring this up with the dealership when the car is due its second service in september though, by then maybe they have found the fix...

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Hi, I am still going to bring this up with the dealership when the car is due its second service in september though, by then maybe they have found the fix...

I'll check mine see if they flicker on side light mode

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Was sat in the petrol station today and while waiting behind a black car I noticed the drl slight flicker on left side, so began to play a bit as the heaters and dips were on. Turned heaters off to start with and they stopped, heaters on they start, dips off heaters on they stop, dips on heaters off still ok so started the heated seats seams ok, flicked on front window heater the drl dims switch back off the brighten up again. Must be a power drain thing so until they actually fail or flicker constantly I doubt ford will do anything. On the plus side if do go into dealer about it I can hopefully make them flicker on que.

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The item was posted more as a matter of interest rather than as specific help Tomo 2001 and might be relevant for readers who are keen to upgrade their cars in this way. It illustrated to me, at least, the interaction of various components in modern cars - doctors would I suppose call it the 'holistic' approach!

Apologies if I posted in the incorrect area but I thought it would link in with topic under discussion.

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Sorry to show my ignorence but what are DRL's ?

Regards

John

I would like to thank all the members who responded to my question above. As I say "I would like to".

I have now worked it out for myself.

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I would like to thank all the members who responded to my question above. As I say "I would like to".

I have now worked it out for myself.

I am happy to hear you have worked this out for yourself. :)

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  • 3 years later...

ABOUT TO GET THE FOCUS TITANIUM X IN 2 WEEKS TIME I HOPE THIS HAS BEEN FIXED SINCE OTHERS HAD THE PROBLEM WITH THE XENON LIGHTS,THE GUY WHO SAID HIS LIGHTS SUDDENLY WENT LOW THE TITANIUM X HAS AUTOMATIC HEADLIGHT HEIGHT ADJUSTMENT OR IT IS NOW THAT COULD'VE BEEN THE PROBLEM BACK THEN ,WILL FIND OUT ONCE I GET MINE  FINGERS CROSSED .

Edited by wilf68
MISSED WORDS OUT
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On 8/19/2016 at 2:50 PM, wilf68 said:

ABOUT TO GET THE FOCUS TITANIUM X IN 2 WEEKS TIME I HOPE THIS HAS BEEN FIXED SINCE OTHERS HAD THE PROBLEM WITH THE XENON LIGHTS,THE GUY WHO SAID HIS LIGHTS SUDDENLY WENT LOW THE TITANIUM X HAS AUTOMATIC HEADLIGHT HEIGHT ADJUSTMENT OR IT IS NOW THAT COULD'VE BEEN THE PROBLEM BACK THEN ,WILL FIND OUT ONCE I GET MINE  FINGERS CROSSED .

Firstly, please don't write in all caps and italics!

All Xenon lights have got to automatically level because the law says so. This is to prevent blinding people, however, the lights that this guy are on about have gone into a fail safe state at their lowest position.

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  • 3 months later...

I have a brand new Focus 1.6 tdi Titanium. Very pleased with it until I also experienced this same failure on the adaptive xenin headlights.

On engine start beams rotate through their usual start up sequence except that the left hand beam continues to dance away.

Eventually is settles but fixed at hard left with no full beam available.

Can't understand why this isn't a recall issue as there seems to be a health and safety issue.

This is one of several issues with this car within 3 months.

My wifes Ka also new has problems of its own.

Moral: don't buy a Ford

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4 hours ago, Flagman said:

I have a brand new Focus 1.6 tdi Titanium. Very pleased with it until I also experienced this same failure on the adaptive xenin headlights.

On engine start beams rotate through their usual start up sequence except that the left hand beam continues to dance away.

Eventually is settles but fixed at hard left with no full beam available.

Can't understand why this isn't a recall issue as there seems to be a health and safety issue.

This is one of several issues with this car within 3 months.

My wifes Ka also new has problems of its own.

Moral: don't buy a Ford

did you not test the headlights out before you got your new focus, it should be under warrenty still anyway

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And that article claiming that LEDs/bulb are not on the Can bus and that LEDs have near infinite resistance needs to go back to school and learn some basic electronics. LED's have very little resistance, hence they don't get so warm and the bulb failure sensor thinks there is no bulb. You have to add resistance to the circuit to fool the car into thinking a normal bulb is there. Can bus safe LED's have the resisters inbuilt to increase the resistance

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43 minutes ago, madmole said:

And that article claiming that LEDs/bulb are not on the Can bus and that LEDs have near infinite resistance needs to go back to school and learn some basic electronics. LED's have very little resistance, hence they don't get so warm and the bulb failure sensor thinks there is no bulb. You have to add resistance to the circuit to fool the car into thinking a normal bulb is there. Can bus safe LED's have the resisters inbuilt to increase the resistance

Was this meant for another post? This post doesn't mention LED?

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10 hours ago, DJ_Andy_M said:
11 hours ago, madmole said:

And that article claiming that LEDs/bulb are not on the Can bus and that LEDs have near infinite resistance needs to go back to school and learn some basic electronics. LED's have very little resistance, hence they don't get so warm and the bulb failure sensor thinks there is no bulb. You have to add resistance to the circuit to fool the car into thinking a normal bulb is there. Can bus safe LED's have the resisters inbuilt to increase the resistance

Was this meant for another post? This post doesn't mention LED?

In any case what he said is wrong.

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3 hours ago, mjt said:

In any case what he said is wrong.

True. Certainly if they are factory installed LEDs.

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 If they're factory installed the ECU will obviously be programmed to take account of the different characteristics.

Although this is still off topic I think some clarification is in order:

The bulb failure detection works by monitoring current, not resistance. Since LED's are up to 8 times more efficient than incandescent bulbs the current they take, for an equivalent light output, may be as little as 1/8th of the filament lamp. That's why the ECU incorrectly detects a failure. Using Ohms law it's easy to see that this equates to a higher resistance. In fact the LEDs need a series resistor or some form of built-in regulation to limit the current as their forward voltage is typically 2V-3V and they would be destroyed by connecting the junction directly to 12V.

To overcome this problem the CANbus-friendly bulbs have to be fitted with a low-value parallel resistor to increase the current drawn. This effectively negates the efficiency gains of the LED so the only benefits are the higher colour temperature and potentially longer life, athough as has been pointed out in other threads the heat generated by this resistor can drastically shorten the life of the LED.

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  • 2 years later...

I have a 2012 Mk3 focus titanium x my left xenon headlight went out so I bought replacement bulbs they didn't work so bought a replacement ballast and it now works for 10 mins then switches off but if I turn my lights off then back on it works for another 10 mins then goes off again anyone any ideas what it could be because auto electricians by me don't seem to know either??? 

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I had the same symptoms with mine, bought new bulbs, ballast and in the end turned out to be cable connector from the ballast to the bulb.

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

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