I put HIDs in my STi bugeye projectors a few years ago. Over time they began to lose their brightness. I ended up rewiring the whole setup - I'm using harnesses, but I ditched the vampire clips and soldered everything. This helped slightly, but not significantly.

It's to the point now where they are not really brighter than normal projectors. When I turn them on, their are bright and blueish for about 3 seconds, then look completely normal. I'd estimate they are about 50% as bright as they were when I first put them in.

My question is, does anyone have an educated guess as to whether the ballasts, bulbs, or perhaps the wiring harnesses are to blame? I'm going to have this car for at least a couple more years, so I want to get these things fixed, but I don't want to just start throwing money at it without any clue which is to blame. Anyone have any experience with their HIDs going down the tube?

Edit: My HIDs are the ones that Alan Jung was selling a few years ago (maybe he still is?)

Bulb Size: H1
Bulb Color: 7000k Violet

the bulb is only able to last for a couple of thousand hours. so maybe its time to replace it

The brightness of the bulbs degrade over time. Have you been driving at night since you installed them? That could be the issue with your lights.

maybe I'm not understanding your question, but yes, of course I've been driving at night. I've had them for years.

I will probably just order some replacement bulbs, since that seems like the most likely cause from the responses here so far.

I was just asking if you have a lot of hours driving at night on them since you said you had a few years on them. I wasn't sure whether you knew the light output degraded over time and had possibly taken that into account when saying they had gotten dim already like you hadn't really used them enough for it to.

oh no... i'd say i drive a normal amount at night. the part i wasn't sure about is whether they would dim, or just suddenly go out. but now that that's been answered i will start with the bulbs. if anyone knows a good place to buy the H1 7000ks, let me know. I contacted Alan Jung who I bought them from to see if he was still selling HIDs because I remember his prices being pretty reasonable.

you need somewhere between 4300k and 5000k to get the best lighting from HID's. you will actually lose light output the higher you go. i have a set of 5000k's that i bought from the kaixen group buy. i was going to through them in my jdm lights but decided to do a retro instead. let me know if you are interested