I have Retro Solutions and am having an issue with a ballast. They are working on it for me but I just can't deal with getting one email a day and no phone number to call for service. It's taking what should have been troubleshot diagnosed in a day to over a week now.

I like the lights when they were working correctly but now I'm getting massive RFI from them when I turn them on, one bulb only lights sometimes and they are telling me the ballast can't cause RFI. This just started happening, like sometimes the truck will stall if I'm sitting idling when I turn the lights one. The other times my abs light will come on, or all cluster warning lights come on like when you first start the truck only with a little stumble of the engine.

They just keep saying it's not the lights/ballasts. Well how come it only happens when I turn on the lights?

I've ran new ground wires to to make make sure they were happy, everything ohms at less than 1 ohm so, I know it's not wiring.

I want to add them to my fog lights but customer service (not that theirs is bad, it's just not what I think it should be) goes a long way when it comes to me spending my money.

Suggestions?

 

i would never run HID lights on a vehicle that was not delivered from the dealer with them. there are just too many problems with them, plus 99% of the aftermarket HID lights made are not DOT legal.

 

I am running a SDX Xenon HID Headlight DC "Premium" Conversion Kits - H1 - 8000K that I got through Amazon. I like them and have no issues with as of yet. I just converted about a two weeks ago. They make a world of difference for me espically in the fields!

 

Whoever told you that ballasts don't cause RFI is feeding you BS with a BIG Spoon..... Transformers and Ballasts of all flavors generate RF Noise to some degree. Grow Lights are the worst offenders. And HIDs are a smaller version of a GL... 80% of todays Ballasts are made in PRC...Cause they're cheap!

 

I have DDM HIDs in the truck for about 3-4 years now, still works fine. Not the highest quality IMO, since the wire is aluminum. Fuse holder melted on me, see pic. Prolly my fault since I used RTV to seal it, and learned later that corrodes Al wire. Corrosion = resistance = heat and there ya go. Did not blow or fail and I replaced with waterproof holder. Similar DDM kit for the wife's Subie only lasted 2 years before a ballast died. They did replace free of charge but I slapped in the OE halogens and never looked back. Customer service limited to email there too. The 7.3 world is blessed to have a lot of really responsive vendors, enthusiasts who stand behind their product. Cheap electronics imported from PRC, not so much.

It is common for HIDs to produce nice fat blasts of RFI that interfere with a chipped truck. On mine with an F5 chip it would stumble or even stall. The fix is a couple RFI chokes aka ferrite beads on the wire from the ballast and the F5 cable.