Hey guys im Austin,
just bought an x type 2.2d estate and the previous owner had the alternator replaced and he said they must of knocked the lightsnor something as the dipped beam doeant work on either side, got side lights, full beam and fog, could it be the bulbs or something else? Ive read that x types have issues with there head lights,

also when I road tested the car the trip button worked but now it doesn't, stuck on the millage, isnit common for the stalks to go?

kind regards Austin

 

Austin, because you have a trip button and headlight issue, yes, the more likely situation is that you have a bad stalk. At a minimum, a stalk replacement is probably a good thing to do to see what you have at that point. It is fairly easy to do and shouldn't set you back much.

If you are still having issues, please stop back and we can take things from there. I have the diagrams for your car and we can do a few checks to see what your problem may be.

 

The full beam works fine, it's the dipped beam that doesn't, say if I turned the lights on with the turn switch on the dash all I get is side lights (the ones with the little 501 bulbs)

 

Austin, what year car do you have? This will help me in giving you very specific information as there are 2 different wiring harnesses for the X-Type and differently numbered fuse boxes. I would hate to send you on a wild goose chase because I gave you the wrong fuse number.

As for the trip computer issue, that is almost definitely the stalk and it needing replaced. The headlights, we have a few things that we will need to separate and figure out what is causing your issue.

 

Hello thermo, the car is a 2006 2.2 diesel sport estate, the new bulbs where fitted and no different,
Have just orderd a new stalk so hopefully that will be here in the week

 

Just bumping my post

 

Bump still need help

 

Austin, sorry, I have been working long hours and just getting back to a normal life.

As for your problem, lets start with some easy things and then we can move up from there. Lets first start with swapping relays R11 and R4 in the engine bay fuse box. See if the lights come on now. If yes, then remove the relay that is currently installed in the R4 position and replace it with a new relay (the R4 relay controls your wipers). If this does not make things better, remove relay R11 and if you look on the back of it, you will see where the metal tabs will have numbers next to them. I want you to locate pins 3 and 5. Now, relate to where these would be inside the fuse box. Using a piece of say solid core 18 guage wire (or a paper clip), insert the wire into the holes for pins 3 and 5 to make electrical contact in both holes. Did the headlights come on now? If no, then check fuses F29 and F30 (if in doubt, replace them). If you find, bad fuses, repeat the last check to verify that the headlights work now. If the lights did come on with the jump trick, then your problem lies in the interior of the car. Continue on.

Since we now know the problem is inside the passenger cab of the car, the first check will be to see if you are getting 12 VDC on pin 1 of relay R11. If no, then you have a bad engine bay fuse box. If yes, next, do a resistance check of Pin 2 with the switches lined up to turn on the headlights. Did you get less than 10 ohms? If yes, then we have missed something and we need to take a few steps back to make sure we have not missed something. If you are getting more than 10 ohms, you will now need to access the headlight switch.

With the headlight switch out in your hands, do a resistance check of Pin 6 (black wire). Are you getting less than 10 ohms? If no, you have a bad wire between Pin 6 and chassis ground, replace this wire or determine why it is not grounded (recent work under the dash?) If you are getting less than 10 ohms, place the headlight switch so it would turn on the headlights and do a resistance check of Pin 14 (green wire). Are you getting less than 10 ohms now? If yes, you have a bad wire between the headlight switch and the engine bay fuse box. If no, you have a bad headlight switch.

Please keep in mind that all the multimeter checks are being done in relation to the chassis. So, your red lead will go on the point I talk about and the black lead will need to touch anything metal nearby.

If you need more assistance, let me know.

 

Awsome cheers thermo, thanks for the reply, I shall give all that ago today and see what happens.
Cheers budy

 

Hello guys and thermo, only just got round to looking at my lights, when I do the jump trick you mentioned from pin 5-3 in relay 11 socket, my side lights come on but not my dipped beam. I've tried to volt checks but the battery needs charging. I'm gonna pull the front end of and put in some osram bulbs, it's just bugging me as trying to get the car to an mot station. Cheers

 

Blue, yes, the side lights should have come on when you did the jumper. It will happen because you had your headlight switch in the OFF position and it is feeding power back through the headlight switch.

The first thing to check at this point is fuses F29 and F30 in the engine bay fuse box. Lets verify that you don't have something silly like 2 blown fuses. Assuming that you have 2 good fuses, the next check is going to need you to remove the right hand headlight assembly plug from the headlight housing. If you look at the face of the plug that is now exposed, you should see some very small numbers (1 thru 10). You want to find #5. Using a multimeter, put the red lead into the spot for #5 and the black lead against anything metal in the engine bay. Do you get 12 VDC with the headlight switch in the ON position (relay installed)? If yes, then your problem lies inside the headlight housings and odds are, you are going to find that the wire that goes to the center of the bulb (I am making the assumption that you have the halogen headlights and not the HID headlights as you mention you are buying OSRAM bulbs, if you have HID lighting, that can change things dramatically because of the battery state).

You will also want to look at the terminals on both the plug and the headlight assembly to make sure that they are all silver in appearance and not a dull gray/brown color. Something other than silver indicates corrosion has built up and that can possibly cause what you are seeing. If you need to clean the surfaces, using an razor blade or a scribe to scratch the surfaces to get a shiny silver appearance back is the easiest way to do that. Just make sure to have power off to the headlights so you don't accidentally short something. if you cleaned the surfaces, try starting this process over to see if you fixed your issue.

If you are still having issues, then let me know and we can get you taken care of.

 

Cheers thermo, how do I determine weather I have HIDS or no? Cheers

 

Blue, first thing I would check is to open your driver's door and between the hinges of the door, do you have a white/silver sticker there saying something to the effect of "this vehicle equipped with High Intensity Discharge Lighting"? If yes, then you have HIDs. If you don't have the sticker, in your case, I would then say to remove the outer cover on the back side of the headlight assembly. Do you see the terminals of a headlight bulb or is there a black, plastic box in your way. If you see a bulb, you have the traditional halogen bulbs. If you have a black box in your way, then you have HIDs.

A common issue I see is people think that halogen bulbs are HID bulbs. This gets even more confusing when the manufacturers talk about putting xenon in their conventional bulbs. I will give you 2 ways to differentiate between the bulbs just by looking at the bulb and/or box it comes in. The first way is to look at the box and see what type of bulb it says it is. If it talks about being an H1 bulb, then that is a conventional bulb. If you see something like D2S, then that is an HID bulb. In short, conventional bulbs will talk about being either a HX (where X is some number or multiple numbers) or simply refer to themselves as 4 numbers (like 9007). An HID bulb that comes from the factory will be either a D2S (x-type) or D3S (newer cars like my 2012 XJ).

The other way that you can tell is by checking what the bulb looks like. A conventional bulb is going to be a glass tube with a coil of wire inside. An HID bulb is going to be a tube of glass, with a ball of glass inside and if you look inside that ball of glass, you will see where there are 2 metal plates/wires that have a small gap between them. The principle of operation is completely different (and this is why you simply cannot remove your H1 bulbs and put in the D2S bulbs). A halogen bulb simply passes a current through the coil of wire, causing it to get so hot, that it emits light. Pretty straight forward. With an HID bulb, there is no coil to heat up. What happens is there is a very large voltage that initially gets applied (around 23,000 volts, yes, that high). This causes a spark to jump from one wire to another inside the HID bulb. Once this arc is established, the voltage drops down to around 85V to maintain the arc. This arc is what makes the light.

I am sure I went into a lot more detail than what you really needed to know, but sometimes knowing how it works helps to show the differences in the bulbs.