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Oct. 18th, 2005
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moonwolf
When I checked my headlights on the way back from Orlando Sunday night, both were operational. When I got into the parking garage at USF this morning, neither was. I of course assumed I had blown a fuse, and went through a lot of trouble to extract said fuse, which was, well, nearly fused to its holder. Nope. Fuse fine. (And now there's a fancy plastic fuse extractor hiding in the bodywork of my car. Maybe an archaeologist will find it one day.)
Okay, relay. Off to the epic adventure of getting the relay off. I'm not entirely sure how the Mazda engineers envision people undoing the locking clasps when they left a good two millimeters between the adjoining relays. But I will not be defeated by mere space and physics! No! I was victorious, thanks to violence and paper clips! If paper clips don't solve your problem, I always say, you just haven't used enough!
Well, darn. Swapping the relay with a known good one did nothing. Hm. What the heck. Open circuit in the wiring? Out comes the multimeter. Hey, look, there's 12 volts at the light terminals. Huh? Twistarghgrrrrpop. Hey, look, the bulb's burned out. More twistargghgrrrpop. Hey, look, so's the other one. At least they're only $20 / piece premium H7s.
So, either a gremlin's loose zapping my lights, or the verdict on Sylvania SilverStars is rather unfavorable. Of course the only choices are Sylvania, Sylvania and Sylvania, so I picked the latter. We'll see how the non-astronomical kind (for a great savings at only $17 a pop!) go.
Incidentally, Pep-boys? You know your customers think you're silly when you sell a two pack of something at $39.99 and the individual product at $19.99?
Also, on the upshoot--there's a pretty large car parts store less than half a block from my house.
Okay, relay. Off to the epic adventure of getting the relay off. I'm not entirely sure how the Mazda engineers envision people undoing the locking clasps when they left a good two millimeters between the adjoining relays. But I will not be defeated by mere space and physics! No! I was victorious, thanks to violence and paper clips! If paper clips don't solve your problem, I always say, you just haven't used enough!
Well, darn. Swapping the relay with a known good one did nothing. Hm. What the heck. Open circuit in the wiring? Out comes the multimeter. Hey, look, there's 12 volts at the light terminals. Huh? Twistarghgrrrrpop. Hey, look, the bulb's burned out. More twistargghgrrrpop. Hey, look, so's the other one. At least they're only $20 / piece premium H7s.
So, either a gremlin's loose zapping my lights, or the verdict on Sylvania SilverStars is rather unfavorable. Of course the only choices are Sylvania, Sylvania and Sylvania, so I picked the latter. We'll see how the non-astronomical kind (for a great savings at only $17 a pop!) go.
Incidentally, Pep-boys? You know your customers think you're silly when you sell a two pack of something at $39.99 and the individual product at $19.99?
Also, on the upshoot--there's a pretty large car parts store less than half a block from my house.