Electro

Hi guys ,

I have seen these kind of errors along the forums but never saw a proper response and I was wondering if anyone ever figured out the reason behind these errors before just going ahead and changing the whole headlight ,

I have a 2013 cayenne that suddenly started turning off the right headlight after showing up "Dipped headlight fault" , I then proceeded to check the bulb/ballast and it was fine, then I figured out that if I turned the car on with the headlights off the error would still come up but I could then turn the headlights and they would come up but I didn't have cornering lights just regular low/ high beams.
Since it was only on the right headlight I decided to take them both down and switched a couple things from the left "good one" to the right one.
I switched the ballast, bulbs and the headlight actuator motor thinking that maybe one of these was faulty.

Now when I turn the car on, both headlights come on and at least for 30-40 seconds I have fully functioning headlights with cornering lights and all, however, after that time passes I get a Fault Headlight Control and Auto driving light control defective error messages but none of the headlights turn off now, I just get no cornering lights after those messages .

Has anyone ever found a solution for this?

Thanks!

Electro

Well seems like this one is pretty tricky to solve.

Dealer told me don't quite like opening these headlights, they just recommended changing both headlights for about 1.3k each

VarioSpam

That seemed like a good idea switching the parts over from L to R but you switched 3 things at once. Perhaps you can switch them over one-by-one and see which yielded the change in behaviour, and that would show where the fault is. There is also a little circuit board which I guess is the controller for the cornering light.

My lights were suffering from condensation so I was considering putting a conformal coating on these as they are inside the housing where it is damp.

.. of course! They always choose the most expensive option possible. Whatever is faulty, probably one component worth a few bucks and they charge you $2.6k!

scubasteves

Any solution to this? Mine started to do this today. All I can think is we just got back from a road trip and I washed the car to get all of the bugs off and water got somewhere it wasn't supposed to when spraying her down?!

The front right light unit kind of lightly flickers and I have similar faults

shamrok

On my other VAG (2x Audi, VW) vehicles in the past, this fault was usually a dying Xenon bulb. Since the bulbs are nearly a decade old, it really can't hurt to swap in new ones. They should be changed as a pair as well, and a pair of Osram/Philips D1S bulbs should run less than $100.

CC-Medic

The issue mine was having was that condensation from within the headlight, (and, I suspect a spot or two where the lens is sealed to the housing thus allowing water to get in) was leaking into the control unit mounted on the bottom of the headlight. When I pulled mine off, they were full of water. I drained it the best I could and put them on the shoe rack in the dryer to try to get any remaining moisture to turn to vapor and escape.
Putting them back on, only one works now, so ordered a new one.

I also ordered some flex seal liquid and am going to attempt to reseal the lenses, and plan to use dielectric grease on the connectors to hopefully prevent it from happening again.

wbferran

This discussion makes me not love my car anymore. $3,000 to replace a headlight? Ridiculous. In the 20+ years I had my BMW 330, I replaced several headlight lights. Simple.

Kris Murphy

I just had to troubleshoot a dipped beam. Right light was getting wet. Just swapped things over one at a time. First the bulb, then the controller, then the ballast. It was the ballast (it was full of water). Ordered a new ballast for $100, and fixed it.

Then had the same issue. Repeated the same process. It was the bulb.

You do not need to buy the entire light. There are only three things that can fail and as long as you have one working light, you can figure out what it is withing 15 minutes.