Friends 09 Impreza.

*ALL* other lights work and new bulb. When the low beams are turned on the drivers side low beam doesn’t come on, the DRL stays lit. The DRL is on all the time. 

searched other forums but wading through 3,000 simple headlight threads is proving futile  

Im guessing (hoping) the shop installed the wrong bulb and it’s not working right, I’m looking at it tomorrow morning. Does anyone know if that’s possible - install wrong bulb ?

New bulb installed recently by a shop (hence why I’m guessing wrong bulb)

Pigtail looks pristine and headlight assembly looks normal no cracking or water/condensation in the fixture. 

Edited July 29, 20214 yr by idosubaru

 

 

in my experience, when these types of weirdness show up, 9 times out of 10 it is related to a grounding problem.

Fuse?

Cheers 

Bennie

Swap the bulbs side to side and see if the fault follows the bulb.  You will also get a chance to inspect the bulbs and connectors.

20 minutes ago, lmdew said:

Swap the bulbs side to side and see if the fault follows the bulb.  You will also get a chance to inspect the bulbs and connectors.

It looks to have a new pigtail spliced in.

Is there a way to test for sure if it’s wired backwards?   I guess if I compare with a multimeter to the passenger side?  But I’m not sure what I’m testing since the DRLs work.  Maybe I’m looking for which is ground and see if they’re switched? I’ll see if I can test for ground snd see if the wires look different in anyway. 

When I orient the connector on passengers and drivers side the same way and look at both - the red and black wires are on opposite sides. So I assume a previous shop wired in a new connector and swapped the wires?   I’ll swap the wires a little later today. 

Edited July 29, 20214 yr by idosubaru

Did you or the shop install the new pigtail?

39 minutes ago, UnorganizedMechanic said:

Did you or the shop install the new pigtail?

 

6 hours ago, idosubaru said:

I assume a previous shop wired in a new connector

 

The new pigtail was wired in backwards by a previous shop.  Compared it to the other side and the wires were opposite.

The assemblies were faded and his uncle attempted to freshen them up before, so he decided to get new headlight assemblies which I installed last week.

Thanks all!