Question After a bag of groceries hit the inside of the trunk the dash light came on. I happened to hit the right area and it went out. This happened twice. Third time, the warning indicator stays on. Next, left tail light went out. Changed it (5.0w). Light bulb didn't work, dash light still on. Now I'm confused. Nothing else on my 97SC400 is wrong. 62k "grandma miles". Should I change all bulbs as they are all original? It seems my low beam headlights are dimmer than they used to be. Maybe all my lights are just old and slowing down (like me) :-)
Answer LoL! I doubt it!
Halogen bulbs burn out & dim constantly over their lifespan. Don't buy into hype. Just replace them with the generic sylvania, or phillips bulbs. Anything else simply has a coating on it, which actually decreases output!
"real" High Intensity Discharge (HID) bulbs cost about $75+ a set, and they take special power inverters (ballasts) to run which cost about $100-200 a pair also. :)
Then again they last longer & generally put out 3x the amount of light!
Now! Your high beams are 9005's , your low beams are 9006's, your fog lights are H3's. (That's the bulb type / size)
Alright! Now! Forget the useless blah blah. Lumen is the general measure of light output of the bulbs.
9006 = 1000
9005 = 1700
Now here's the neat kicker! Aside from one plastic tab, a 9005 high beam bulb will insert into a 9006 low-beam socket. It's not a trenendous increase in light output. However. It is very, very noticeable! Ad, it'd probably only be a $5 differance in cost. You simply need to cut, grind, or melt (Soldering iron) the one offending tab off. I just grabbed a pair of 9005's for one of my older cars for about $15. *Lots* better than the very, very old 9006's I had.
Very easy. Here's a site outlining the proceedure.
You can buy HID retrofits... But they're illeage withing being in HID approved housings. Which means another couple hundred retrofitting above the cost of just buying them. *And* if you don't get projector housings. The amount of glare is simply blinding. One new HID has more output over than a typical set of somewhat aged halogen low beams & highbeams. On at the same time. And they're very itnense! :)
AFA the brake lights. The tail lights are dual filiment (Two bulbs in one casing). Most people simply can't find the one filiment that's dead in a 2 filiment bulb.
In your case, I would check the wiring that runs into the trunk to make sure it's not been severed in some way, or that a harness in the wiring has not become loose.
Just stick ontop of basic maintenance. oil changes (flush it sometimes), transmission lfuid changes & cooling system maintenance.
