ninjaswrath

Hi everyone! Glad to be part of this Mazda family!!

Please forgive me, I am a total noob. I just bought a pre-owned 2011 Mazda Sport Grand Touring 4 dr Hatchback. So far I have really enjoyed the car.

About a week ago, I noticed my HID headlights were pointed really low to the ground. I took it to the Mazda Dealership in my area, and they said they needed to replace the entire headlight lens \ headlight assembly. They quoted me $914 per side (so $1828 for parts) and a few hours of labor. Not being able to drive safely at night I told them to do this.

Well, during the install of the new headlight assembly, MAZDA said that I needed to get two new Original Manufacturer HID lights, which were $275 each ($550). Or, they said I could have them use aftermarket HIDs which were only $75 each ($150). I opted for the aftermarkets because $550 just sounded insane to me.

So two days later I get my Mazda 3 back with new new headlight lenses, and new aftermarket HID lights. I notice right away that my HID lights are still not leveled correctly, and the two HID beams seem to cross each other rather than point forward, or meet together.

Another trip to Mazda, and now they tell me that the "motors" in the lenses do not work with the aftermarket HID lights, and I would need to buy two new Original Manufacturer HID lights ($550) if I wanted to be able to aim\use the motors!!! I've already spent $2000 on repairs that I am not even sure I needed. I don't want to spend more money on something if I don't really need it.

Can someone please tell me how the HID headlights work in the Mazda 3 2010/2011/2012? Can you adjust the aim of aftermarket HID lights? Does the motor only work with the Original Manufacturer HID lights? Is the motor part of the HID light, or is the motor in the headlight assembly?

Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for the help in advance!

icspots

So here's how HIDs work. You have a projector which is made up of a reflector bowl, a lens, and a shield in between them. The HID lamp is inserted into the back of the projector and connected to a ballast to power it. The lamp fires up and shines through the lens off the reflector. The shield is what provides the cutoff in the beam pattern so that you don't blind people.

In the US 1st gen 3's the shield was fixed and the headlights did not have an auto-leveling system. Instead there was a manual leveling switch on the dash with which you could aim the lights downward to compensate for extra weight in the back of the car. Adjusting the switch turned a little motor on each projector and raised/lowered the back of the projector to adjust it's angle. Even with this system you still had adjustment screws on the back of the headlight housing itself which you could move to adjust the beam up/down and side/side just like any other headlight.

I'm not sure if the 2nd gen have auto leveling or manual leveling in the US..... is there a **** on the dashboard which changes the level of the lights in your car like there is in the 1st gen? If there is that's the very first thing which should have been checked since if it had been lowered by accident the lights would be pointed lower. If the lights are auto-leveling then it's possible there was something wonky in the leveling system itself. Either way it doesn't sound like there was a problem with the housings themselves..... except that the dealer won't replace pieces, just entire components.

Next difference between 1st and 2nd gen is the 2nd gen have Bi-xenon projectors.. Basically the shield in the projector is moveable. When you turn on your high beams the shield is actually moving out of the way and stops blocking the light from projecting higher than the low beam cutoff.

My next gripe.... why did the dealer need to replace the lamps themselves? The lamps should have been completely transferable to the new housings. Did they break one or both during installation, or did they just feel that new housings should get new lamps? As far as price that's an absolute rip off. All OEM HID systems use D2S lamps. That signifies the base on the lamp and how it connects to the housing.... just like H7, H11, 9005, etc. Just different size lamps and different bases. You can get a brand new set of Phillips Osram 82511+ D2S lamps for under $100 online. Those are some of the best HID lamps on the market and AFAIK made by the same company as the OEM ones. The dealer just likes to mark things up.

Regardless of OEM or aftermarket the lamps would still be D2S unless they did something rampantly stupid and made weird modifications for the projector to accommodate a different lamp. Either way I can't imagine a scenario where a different lamp would affect the leveling system. The lamp just sticks into the back of the projector and sits there..... it doesn't do anything else.

As far as how/where the motor is mounted I can't say. I'm not sure if it's inside the housing or accessible from the outside. In or out though there should still be leveling screws on the back of the housing itself.

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First things first:
-Is there a leveling switch inside the car?
-get an itemized list of everything they replaced and ask for specific reasons for it's replacement (in writing)
-ask for your original parts back..... them replacing a part doesn't mean you own the "broken" part any less.

I suggest you spend the 10 minutes or so to take the front bumper cover off and remove the headlight housings yourself and actually take a look at what's going on. I feel like the dealer has absolutely no idea what's going on and has been replacing unnecessary things this entire time. That said I'm not 100% familiar with the headlights on the 2nd gen so it's possible there's something else going on that I don't know about.

You also may want to join another forum to get more views and responses to this question. I'd suggest mazda3forums.

ninjaswrath

Thank-you so much for the detailed reply "ICSPOTS". It's great to know there are members who know their technical information and are so willing to help others who are not as informed. I'm learning a bunch from these forums and appreciate all of the responses.

So, I have since gone back to the dealer, and asked why I am not able to adjust my headlight aim. They kept my Mazda 3 for two days before contacting me and letting me know that it is because I have aftermarket HID's with an aftermarket ballast. They said that because I don't have an original HID setup, the motors will not work. They never informed me of this before when given the choice of original ($275 per HID bulb per side, plus $375 per ballast per side, which is $650 per side, or $1300 for both sides), or get an aftermarket "H9 HID BULB SET" for $40. They are the ones that offered the less expensive alternative of the aftermarket HID lights, and they installed the aftermarket HIDs for me! They also charged me 3 hours of labor at $90 / hour to swap out the Head Light Assembly ($1800) and install the aftermarket HID lights.

Not once did the Mazda Dealership Service department tell me that my motors and aim would not work if I went with the aftermarket HIDs. That really ticked me off. I actually don't think I needed my Headlight assembly replaced either. To make things worse, my turn signals now only intermittently work after Mazda did the Headlight Service on my vehicle. When I went to Mazda about this claim, they said the work they did would not have affected the turn signals and they cannot be held accountable for it. They suggested replacing both headlight wiring harnesses, and getting the original HID setup which they graciously gave me another $2000 quote to perform these services...

I will take your advice ICSPOTS and remove the front bumper and headlamps. I want to inspect the work that Mazda did. I have a feeling that they did some pretty poor soldering when installing the aftermarket HIDs and somehow crossed some wires which are afftecting my turn signal lights.

1. I do not see any leveling switch inside of the car. I guess it wouldn't matter since my headlight motors are not functioning...
2. I have the invoice which lists parts and labor, but it is not super detailed
3. I asked about gettin the old parts that had been replaced and they said it was all discarded the same day it was replaced.

Thanks again for the reply.

icspots

What the F%*K!? Replacing lamps doesn't require replacing ballasts (unless the ballast is shot). Generally both ballasts don't fail at the same time, and from what it sounded like in the first place they did something to **** them up when they removed them. And none of this should have required replacing the entire freaking housing.

How they hell did they get a H9 lamp to fit into the housing? Did they install halogen housings and put in a HID kit? If they did then they've done something illegal (technically) because all aftermarket HIDs are illegal for on road use in the US (not saying I don't have any).

Your car needs to be returned to the condition you brought it to them in, especially if they installed the wrong housing on the car and use that as the excuse for why an integral system doesn't work. You need to get better details on why everything was replaced, talk to the service manager, the general manager, and the dealership owner. Then once you get everyone's names and figure out exactly what the hell they did write a scathing letter to Mazda North America.

This entire situation is incredibly fishy.

Get part numbers for everything they replaced. Once you get the headlight part numbers check with Jason at www.onlinemazdaparts.com (mazdapart@gmail.com) and he can tell you exactly what those are for. It's seriously sounding like they broke something when they "fixed" it the first time, then replaced everything with the wrong parts, didn't let you know exactly what it was you were paying (too much) for and are now trying to blame it on your decisions.

icspots

And even if you have the auto-leveling HIDs which are fancy and turn around corners there's still a freaking manual adjustment on the back.

Honestly it sounds like perhaps your auto-leveling sensor went wonky. Again don't know enough about this model.

ninjaswrath

Here is an update. I was able to take apart my front bumper and remove my headlamp assembly so I could take a closer examination at my light\wire\ballast configuration. It appears they (My local Mazda Dealership) did in fact use H9 HID lights. They had to splice into my original factory headlamp wire harnesses and solder the wires together to make it work. During this process they apparently damaged the wiress that go to my Right-Side signal light. That is another issue I have been having problems with which I did not mention in my original thread message. After Mazda charged me close to $2000 to replace my headlamp assembly lense, my signal lights stopped working. When I signaled, both would light up like my emergency lights were on. Mazda refused to take ownership of this problem even though my signals worked perfectly fine before taking my car to them.

So, rather than taking my Mazda 3 back to the dealership to charge me another arm and a leg and break more things during the process, I ordered my own headlamp wireharnesses for $70. With a little Googling Research, and 3 hours of my time, I was able to install the new wireharnesses, and completely solve my Signal-light issues. I also found the adjustment bolt on the back of the headlamp assembly to adjust the vertical position of the headlights. Now my lights are aimed properly and I can safely drive at night. I can't believe Mazda told me there was no veritical adjustment and then tricked me into spending $2,000 to get something replaced that I didn't even need.

I guess this was a hard\expensive lesson learned. At least I was able to learn how to perform some service on my Mazda 3 myself. Learning how to do some of this on my own made it worth while though. Thanks for everyone's replies and suggestions!! I now love my Mazda3 again!

icspots

I would still be writing a scathing letter to both the general manager of the dealership and to Mazda USA. I'd be asking for a full refund. I doubt you'll get it, but it's worth asking. Besides, it's possible lots of other people are having issues like this, and if they are either the GM needs to know about it, or Mazda needs to know what dealers under it's name are doing.

Lying to you, charging exorbitant prices, randomly replacing parts which bear no relation to the problem you have, creating new problems which they then refuse to own up to. None of these things are acceptable, and you shouldn't put up with any of them.

If you have any other problems with your car come to the forums first. We may be able to save you a lot of time and money.

CharlesDuncan

I am huge fan of these HIDs but the problem is they are illegal so I am forced to look for some other options.. I have seen many people using them but I still prefer legal lights

icspots

I can't argue with you, all non-OEM HIDs are illegal for on road usage. That said that law was put into place because of people using HID kits in reflector housings which cause significant glare and are blinding to other drivers. There's no more blinding going on with HIDs in a projector housing (when properly aimed) than there is with OEM HIDs.