Anyone had a DDM 55W headlight kit on 2010 or 2011?

[DCSport]

My DDM headlight kit is having a hard time firing on both sides, though the driver's side is worse for some reason. Doesn't do it all the time either. Weird because when I first installed it they worked fine for about a week before the issue crept up. I have both headlight and fog light kit:

 

Headlight kit = 55W digital slim ballasts with 6k bulbs

Foglight kit = 35W digital slim ballasts with 5k bulbs

 

I really like the looks of this combination....when it works right! Fog light kit has had no issues at all and fire up every time for past couple of months (installed both kits in mid-March). What happens is that when I turn on the headlights, they fire up and the flicker off. I end up having to cycle the headlights 3-5 times to get them to finally fire up and stay on. Once they're on, they work great and don't seem to shut off on their own.

 

DDM tech support talked me into buying their HID harness kit (which sucks that it was $12.50 plus another $13 shipping) which affectively wires the headlights directly to the battery triggered by a relay. It worked fine for about a day with the harness kit and then seemed to be worse than before after that. I've been on the phone with DDM tech support multiple times and they seem to be baffled and blaming it on the car since it is so new they don't have customer information on it yet. (Mine is a 2011 Sport).

 

Weird thing is that the fog light kit I bought works great, but it is 35W while my headlight kit is 55W. They even had me swap ballasts with the foglights which meant I had the 55W ballasts on the fogs and the 35W ballast on the headlights, and everything worked great when setup that way, even left it that way for a couple of weeks to make sure. I may just wire it up that way and forget about it, but it wasn't really the look I was going for (have 5k bulbs on fogs and 6k bulbs on headlights, so they ended up matching well when setup with 35W fog/ 55W headlight, since higher wattage ballast tones down the color some). This makes me think there is some issue between the compatibility of the 55W ballast and the 6K bulbs, since that is the only setup I am having issues with. I might try wiring it opposite so that my headlights come on with foglight switch and vise versa just to see what it does (I usually run the fogs with the headlights anyway).

 

One thing tech support told me to do is wiring the harness kit as single in/double out, meaning only hook it up to one factory headlight harness and since my driver's side is the side with more issues he suggested only hooking it to passenger side. I did this and it did not help at all. He also said that some applications need to be wired this way and also put in a larger fuse in the stock fuse-box. It doesn't make sense that it cannot get enough current to fire them up, unless the ballast or bulbs have some sort of limit on the amount they can draw. I'm pretty decent with electronics, but I still cannot figure out why they are telling me to put a larger fuse in the car for the headlights and apparently that fixes issues on some vehicles that have this problem. Wouldn't the fuse blow if it was drawing too much current? Can someone please explain this one to me? I haven't tried it yet since I didn't have a larger fuse handy, but I was going to put in a 20A fuse in the pass headlight fuse (my Fusion has separate fuse 10A for left and right). I just took out the fuse for the driver's side since I taped that one off.

 

They said if all this doesn't work I may have to get a 35W kit for the headlights instead, or try out their analog ballasts. I hope if that is the case I won't have to pay for them!

[cigar3tte]

My DDM headlight kit is having a hard time firing on both sides, though the driver's side is worse for some reason. Doesn't do it all the time either. Weird because when I first installed it they worked fine for about a week before the issue crept up. I have both headlight and fog light kit:

 

Headlight kit = 55W digital slim ballasts with 6k bulbs

Foglight kit = 35W digital slim ballasts with 5k bulbs

 

I really like the looks of this combination....when it works right! Fog light kit has had no issues at all and fire up every time for past couple of months (installed both kits in mid-March). What happens is that when I turn on the headlights, they fire up and the flicker off. I end up having to cycle the headlights 3-5 times to get them to finally fire up and stay on. Once they're on, they work great and don't seem to shut off on their own.

 

DDM tech support talked me into buying their HID harness kit (which sucks that it was $12.50 plus another $13 shipping) which affectively wires the headlights directly to the battery triggered by a relay. It worked fine for about a day with the harness kit and then seemed to be worse than before after that. I've been on the phone with DDM tech support multiple times and they seem to be baffled and blaming it on the car since it is so new they don't have customer information on it yet. (Mine is a 2011 Sport).

 

Weird thing is that the fog light kit I bought works great, but it is 35W while my headlight kit is 55W. They even had me swap ballasts with the foglights which meant I had the 55W ballasts on the fogs and the 35W ballast on the headlights, and everything worked great when setup that way, even left it that way for a couple of weeks to make sure. I may just wire it up that way and forget about it, but it wasn't really the look I was going for (have 5k bulbs on fogs and 6k bulbs on headlights, so they ended up matching well when setup with 35W fog/ 55W headlight, since higher wattage ballast tones down the color some). This makes me think there is some issue between the compatibility of the 55W ballast and the 6K bulbs, since that is the only setup I am having issues with. I might try wiring it opposite so that my headlights come on with foglight switch and vise versa just to see what it does (I usually run the fogs with the headlights anyway).

 

One thing tech support told me to do is wiring the harness kit as single in/double out, meaning only hook it up to one factory headlight harness and since my driver's side is the side with more issues he suggested only hooking it to passenger side. I did this and it did not help at all. He also said that some applications need to be wired this way and also put in a larger fuse in the stock fuse-box. It doesn't make sense that it cannot get enough current to fire them up, unless the ballast or bulbs have some sort of limit on the amount they can draw. I'm pretty decent with electronics, but I still cannot figure out why they are telling me to put a larger fuse in the car for the headlights and apparently that fixes issues on some vehicles that have this problem. Wouldn't the fuse blow if it was drawing too much current? Can someone please explain this one to me? I haven't tried it yet since I didn't have a larger fuse handy, but I was going to put in a 20A fuse in the pass headlight fuse (my Fusion has separate fuse 10A for left and right). I just took out the fuse for the driver's side since I taped that one off.

 

They said if all this doesn't work I may have to get a 35W kit for the headlights instead, or try out their analog ballasts. I hope if that is the case I won't have to pay for them!

 

I'd just swap the 55w for 35w, and get the same color temperature you wanted.