Morimoto D2S won't fire first time in cold weather

[alexjames23]

I purchased a Morimoto D2S conversion kit in 2015 from TRS. Car is a 2015 Mazda 6 Touring. When they work properly, I love them. They are nice and bright. BUT, they have (frankly) been unreliable and have had an unacceptable number of problems over the years. I've had to replace multiple bulbs, multiple ignitors, a ballast, and multiple relays. Each time, the lights have been "fixed", but only temporarily for a month or two at a time.

This seems to happen every year, but when it is cold out (50 degrees or less), my right side HID will not ignite on first try. Sometimes it takes 1 more cycle of the headlight switch, sometimes up to 20 times (which cannot be good for the system to cycle this much). This has happened every single winter with this system. It's not only obnoxious, but just unacceptable when I get in my car at night and need to reliably have headlights to use. They were installed exactly as the instructions said, contacts are all bare metal to bare metal. As the above stated, I do have the system wired through a relay with power directly from the battery.

Yes, I know I can "start swapping parts side to side to troubleshoot where the problem is". I know how to troubleshoot and have done it dozens of times. I'm also not really sure if I want to continue doing TRS's warranty and replacing parts. I chose TRS because I thought I would receive quality equipment but my experience has been nothing close to quality. I'm just about ready to stick my stock halogens back in and give up on HIDs.

Any tips / inspiration? Should I just ditch my current kit and get something else? Please forgive my frustration.

[NoodleFace]

It may just be your morimoto harness to be honest. As I understand those use a relay for low beam and another for high. Depending on where the fault is it may not be helpful to swap bulbs, igniters or ballasts around. Also a faulty wiring would not be fixed by just popping in a new relay.
I suggest this because on my own getto test bench I am using a variable power supply that cannot go past 5 amps. While an XB35 would not draw that many amps at 14.4 volts, it certainly freaks out when it is starting up probably trying to draw more out of the poor thing. Ballasts, igniters and bulbs all work fine on the car. It's only when run on the test bench that the ballast can momentarily over load the power supply and refuse to stay on.

[alexjames23]

It may just be your morimoto harness to be honest. As I understand those use a relay for low beam and another for high. Depending on where the fault is it may not be helpful to swap bulbs, igniters or ballasts around. Also a faulty wiring would not be fixed by just popping in a new relay.
I suggest this because on my own getto test bench I am using a variable power supply that cannot go past 5 amps. While an XB35 would not draw that many amps at 14.4 volts, it certainly freaks out when it is starting up probably trying to draw more out of the poor thing. Ballasts, igniters and bulbs all work fine on the car. It's only when run on the test bench that the ballast can momentarily over load the power supply and refuse to stay on.

Honestly that's not a bad idea. Could very well be something I've completely overlooked. I'd like to think I have some basic electrical skills, but I'm definitely not an expert 'nor professional - Where would you start? Check all contacts to make sure they're bare metal to bare metal, make sure all plugs/connectors are actually tight without the silicone gaskets getting in the way? Any other recommendations on what to check?

Thanks!

Alex

[NoodleFace]

Depends on what you can or cannot take apart I guess. The best way to check for wire integrity and contact integrity is using the ohmmeter setting on your multimeter. A frayed wire or a corroded contact should show up as resistance.