[BasalGanglia]

I bought my 3 iSport used last year with only one previous owner. Both headlights went out within a week of each other, so I'm looking at replacing the bulbs. Looked up some DIY's here on replacing the bulbs (thanks Revolution forums!), pulled back the wheel well cover, and discovered that mine are HID's.

Are these the stock HID's, or did the previous owner install these aftermarket?

https://i.imgur.com/Rdc7H8E.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/xwa1F1D.jpg

If I wanted to, could I plug regular halogen bulbs into the green connector and bypass the HID ballast?

Thanks!

 

[arathol]

If you have the factory light boxes remove those HIDs and the wiring. HIDs will damage the reflector surfaces in the headights. They aren't made to withstand the energy output of HIDs.
If you are looking to replace the headlight bulbs (assuming oem headlight boxes), use the proper LEDs. They are much better than halogens. See answers to your other post on this thread-
http://mazda3revolution.com/forums/hid-fog-led/107186-2015-mazda-3-hid-led-drl-corner-markers.html

And yes the connector looks like a factory plug for a headlight bulb. No need for any of the HID wiring at all. You'll probably need to remove it anyway to get the DRL to work properly.
If the wiring has not been hacked there should be 2 on each side- one for the 9005 high beam / DRL bulb and one for the H11 low beam bulb. No way to tell whats what without a lot more detail if the harness has been cut up to install some aftermarket light boxes.

 

[BasalGanglia]

Hi Arathol, thanks for the feedback, I'm now trying to determine if my headlight housing is stock or HID-specific aftermarket (I'm not sure if the previous owner was knowledgeable enough to replace headlight housing when moving to HID if this is aftermarket). Is it true that some of the 3iS come with stock HID's? I get mixed results depending on which bulb lookup website I use.

See photos of headlight housing below:

The harnesses look pretty clean with no cut wires. If these are aftermarket with no proper HID housing, I would revert back to halogen temporarily while taking more time to figure out the LED situation, ultimately aiming to change over to LED long-term.

 

[GerryB]

Those are stock.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk

 

[arathol]

Factory halogen light boxes. The LED setup I linked to above will work very well in those. HIDs may burn up the high beam reflector surfaces.

 

[BasalGanglia]

Sounds like the HID's have got to go then. The LED setup looks pretty straightforward. I may go directly to those for longevity over halogen. I'll post pics when the conversion's complete. Thanks for the input!

 

[arathol]

More details and how to stuff in this earlier post on page 2 and 3.

http://mazda3revolution.com/forums/...iv-appearance-interior/89890-led-drl-s-3.html