so I picked up this nice 04 350z, well I thought it was nice at the time, the seller told me the headlight was out. I didn't think much about it at the time because I just figured it was either the bulb or the ballast. So today I decided to look into it. Pulled the bumper off pulled the light out to find that the housing holding the light in place is all melted, looks like it was on fire at one point. I'm going to attach some pic and I hope someone has maybe scene this before and can chime in.

Looking at the housing I cant see where there was a fire. Its not near the ballast area, and no wires are melted. All the melted plastic is on the left side of the housing, not the bottom nor any of the headlight itself, just the headlight holder. There has been some repair work to the wiring for the ballast, I'm not sure why but can only imagine it has something to do with this.

<a href="http://s1170.photobucket.com/user/lilgsxr1000/media/Junk/2014-02-04_14-04-10_109_zps5aea79a0.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1170.photobucket.com/albums/r532/lilgsxr1000/Junk/2014-02-04_14-04-10_109_zps5aea79a0.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 2014-02-04_14-04-10_109_zps5aea79a0.jpg"/></a>
<a href="http://s1170.photobucket.com/user/lilgsxr1000/media/Junk/2014-02-04_14-04-26_681_zps4f443e25.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1170.photobucket.com/albums/r532/lilgsxr1000/Junk/2014-02-04_14-04-26_681_zps4f443e25.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 2014-02-04_14-04-26_681_zps4f443e25.jpg"/></a>
<a href="http://s1170.photobucket.com/user/lilgsxr1000/media/Junk/2014-02-04_14-04-38_940_zpsb38646e5.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1170.photobucket.com/albums/r532/lilgsxr1000/Junk/2014-02-04_14-04-38_940_zpsb38646e5.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 2014-02-04_14-04-38_940_zpsb38646e5.jpg"/></a>

Also note I did figure out it was the ballast that was bad, I'm in the market for a used one if someone has a known good one laying around and wants to part with it.

 

Thinking you are going to need a lot more than just the ballast. Looks like you need a whole new headlight housing.

 

Car must had some of those cheap ebay hid kits which are notorious for overheating

 

I would send that back to the seller immediately, that housing is shot.

It may have been using a cheap 55 watt HID conversion kit

Nick C.

 

Its a factory HID car. All stock bulbs and ballast. after closer looking I noticed that someone had painted the inside of the housing. I think the melt work is from someone trying to heat the housing to split the lens from the frame. Just thought I would toss the pix up on here to see if anyone had ever seen something like this

 

lmao that's funny. man anything could have happened. just replace no point in trying to figure anything out. could even be the case someone tried to bake it open at some point and fked up. could be anything