Headlight Illumination Issues

[SierraRover]

Do you mean, the updated bulb according to the GM TSB? No, the bulb specified in the TSB is the Vosla 28432.

 

GM may have found a substitute bulb that is similar but cheaper than the Vosla, to which is assigned the same internal GM part number. That might be that Philips bulb in your picture.

[stahl306]

I think they definitely put in the wrong bulbs! Now I wonder when they update the bcm,what voltages do they upgrade to?

Thanks.

[Shredzy]

Stahl306, don't get too excited about not having the Vosla bulbs as from my experience they were no better, maybe worse(?) than the Philips. The Vosla's don't seem to last long either.

 

Even after having the tsb done the headlights on the '14-'15 Sierras are very poor.

 

I realize you had a bad experience with an HID kit, but many have stated very good results with using HID and even some LED kits.

 

Maybe another brand of HID is worth trying?

 

I'm curious to see how SierraRover's install of the HID kits goes, reviews of the kit are very positive.

Edited March 14, 2017 by Shredzy

[stahl306]

One thing I did notice the gm dealer knows more about the headlight issue then the chev dealer ship. When I first found out about the upgrade, I took it to chev dealer and they looked at everything and said it already has upgrade and to prove it said it was built after such and such a date. Out of desperation I took it to gm dealer and he said upgrade had never been done, and to be honest it was a big difference. I have to grudgingly admit that. I know it is not the real solutions, but I can get by. Now I have to wonder where some of the people take their trucks to get serviced. Sure the dealer might say upgrade is done, but best way to know for sure is pull the bubs and check voltage.

[Shredzy]

One thing I did notice the gm dealer knows more about the headlight issue then the chev dealer ship. When I first found out about the upgrade, I took it to chev dealer and they looked at everything and said it already has upgrade and to prove it said it was built after such and such a date. Out of desperation I took it to gm dealer and he said upgrade had never been done, and to be honest it was a big difference. I have to grudgingly admit that. I know it is not the real solutions, but I can get by. Now I have to wonder where some of the people take their trucks to get serviced. Sure the dealer might say upgrade is done, but best way to know for sure is pull the bubs and check voltage.

Do you have a GMC Sierra or a Chevrolet Silverado? What year is it?

[stahl306]

It is a 2015 GMC sierra crewcab z71. 5.8 box. 2.25 inch levelling kit. Timbren bump stops which actually help keep truck level when loaded so lights don't blind on coming traffic.

[SierraRover]

I installed the Morimoto HID kit from Retro Fit Source this weekend. https://www.theretrofitsource.com/2014-sierra-morimoto-elite.html

 

It is great – the headlights light up the road now. They are 100% better than the OEM lights. I am waiting for a dark, rainy night so I can go for a ride on a country road. I will see the dark-clothed people that walk along the roadside, and laugh at the night.

 

The Morimoto components appear to be top quality and the bulbs are rated for 2500 hours. We'll see how it holds up.

 

The main challenge:

 

The hardest part of the installation is figuring out where to place and anchor everything inside the front of your Sierra.

 

Two things are not as depicted in the instructions:

 

1. The Capacitor does not have a separate line to Ground, although the drawing shows that it does. I don’t think this matters.

 

2. The connectors from the ballasts to the OEM power inputs (the line that went to the old OEM bulb) does not have the connector cap on it – just bare wires with end pins. That is necessary because the hole in the backing caps is 22mm, and too small for the caps to pass through if connected. So you have to install the caps yourself after pushing the pins into place. No problem – just connect the red wire to the positive side, and black to black, matching the line being connected into.

 

One interesting feature:

 

According to the instructions, you only hook up one of the OEM bulb input lines to the Morimoto harness. This one line is connected to your OEM headlight system and activates the new HID system. The other original bulb input line you leave unconnected. (I don’t know what would happen if you connected both of them! So I followed instructions and connected only one).

 

The way I installed my system:

 

It was hard to find locations for the relays and one of the ballasts where the Morimoto instructions said they should go, on the passenger side of the truck. The air box gets in the way a lot. I tried one configuration with the relays next to the radiator, but decided that wouldn’t be a good place because of heat. And I didn’t want to just hang the components with wire ties. I decided to flip the system to the other side of my Sierra. There is plenty of room on the driver’s side, above the tray behind the headlight, and it was just a matter of reversing the instructions for the other side. The Morimoto relays and main part of the harness are designed to be relatively close to the battery, which is on the passenger side. Because I flipped the system from Morimoto’s drawing, I had to add lengths of 12 gauge wire for power and for ground to run power from the battery over to the driver’s side set up (since this is where the relays are now). But it works great and I have good access to all of the components if trouble-shooting or servicing is required, and they are well mounted on the sides of the engine compartment.

 

Criticism (neither of these is a show-stopper):

 

1. The Morimoto instruction booklet .pdf is clearly written but prints very light. Use a "black and white" setting on your laser printer and high dpi resolution and it comes out a little darker and easier to read.

 

2. The short extension wire provided in the kit is needed because the Sierra is wider than the average car (this is, after all, a generic set of components that can be make to fit any vehicle). There would be a few more options on where to mount components if the extension wire were a couple of feet longer.

 

The Future:

 

I will keep a spare regular 9012 bulb in my glove box in case the ballasts or relays on the Morimoto kit go T/U. That gives the ability to re-insert an OEM-style bulb in the driver’s side headlight and re-connect the original wire to it, and limp home with at least one headlight, if I have to. (As folks who have worked on Sierra headlights know, the driver's side headlight bulb is easy to reach but the passenger side headlight bulb cannot be reached without removing the air box).

 

Picture:

 

The photo shows, from left to right, the capacitor, the ballast, the relays, and the igniter in the large open space that is above the tray and behind the driver's side headlight. The relays and ballast are pop-riveted to the side of the engine compartment. All of this is on the opposite side from what Morimoto recommends, but I found there was much more room for these components on the driver's side compared to the passenger side. (Since taking the picture, I have secured the capacitor so that it does not move around and hit anything else). On the far right side is the cable run (in the plastic flex tube) that takes the connector wire over to the passenger side ballast and light, as well as carrying the power and ground wires over to their connection points by the battery. I opted for using the plastic flex tube to carry to wires to prevent wire chafing.

Edited March 20, 2017 by SierraRover

[arcasey]

Stahl306, don't get too excited about not having the Vosla bulbs as from my experience they were no better, maybe worse(?) than the Philips. The Vosla's don't seem to last long either.

 

Even after having the tsb done the headlights on the '14-'15 Sierras are very poor.

 

I realize you had a bad experience with an HID kit, but many have stated very good results with using HID and even some LED kits.

 

Maybe another brand of HID is worth trying?

 

I'm curious to see how SierraRover's install of the HID kits goes, reviews of the kit are very positive.

 

I too just installed the Morimoto kit in my 2015 Sierra. I have personally installed or helped install 5-6 different brands of HID kits on either my vehicles or a friend's. I must say I have never found an HID kit that was truly plug-and-play without zero issues, but now that I have a Morimoto kit I will never buy anything else. Their kits are more robust with clear installation instructions as compared to other kits. My one issue was with the Stock input connection after putting the small wire prongs into the plastic female connector and plugging everything up I wasn't getting a good connection and wasn't getting power to the HID ballasts. I ended up cutting the stock input harness adapter (kits comes with two) to remove it and used the second harness adapter without the plastic female connector and just stuck the wire prongs into the respective slots in the stock input connector. I just used electrical tape to hold them in place. Everything works perfectly.

 

As far as output, the distribution is very even when compared to the other two HID kits I've had in the truck. There are still some small hot spots but there are no dark spots. I actually coupled my 55W HID kit with the XB LED fog lights and the on road visibility is twice as good as stock output and about 50% improvement over the two previous HID kits. The fogs aren't as bright as I expected but they do actually project more usable light and don't blind oncoming drivers because there is no glare.

 

And I also asked about the difference in the capacitor link. The one I received was just a black box with a male and female connection without the grounding wire. I was having some issues with turning the headlights on manually without the key in the ignition in the on position but I think I have fixed that issue. Not really sure what I did but it seems to work properly now. By the way, don let anyone tell you that it is okay to run HID's in the Sierra's fog light housings. I had a 25W kit that ran all of maybe 3 hours total before one of the bulbs blew (the main reason I abandoned the second kit and bought Morimoto). When I removed the housings to install the LED fogs I inspected the stock housings and there were distinctive bubbles in the silver foil where it had gotten so hot.

[Chad Frantz]

I dont think I should have to pay for a HID kit. Just seen that my drivers side light is out again. I only got 12000 miles out of this bulb - truck just hit 30000 miles. This will be the fourth light bulb that has been in this truck. Bunch of BS if you ask me.

[SierraRover]

The Vosla bulbs have a life of around 250 hours. Less if the voltage supply is higher than 13 volts. And don't forget that your bulbs are on all the time the engine is running.

 

I agree that you shouldn't have to pay for a HID kit. GM really let down their customers on this one.

 

I added the Morimoto HID kit to give myself better visibility of the road -- which it does very well. And incidentally to have bulbs that last longer -- around 2500 hours.

[Chad Frantz]

If I purchase the truck at the end of my lease I will probably buy a HID kit but until then they are going to hear me complain everytime I have to go get them replaced. Sometimes it just makes me feel better to complain. Ha

[Shredzy]

If I purchase the truck at the end of my lease I will probably buy a HID kit but until then they are going to hear me complain everytime I have to go get them replaced. Sometimes it just makes me feel better to complain. Ha

GM & the dealers seem to have selective hearing and won't care if you're unhappy with the lighting on your truck.

 

With the lease, you can walk away from the problem.

[SierraRover]

Agree. A reason in favor of leases over purchase.

 

GM has had a lot of recalls. They decided this issue wasn't worth fixing the right way. Shame on them, but they are so fat and sassy that they don't care if you or I buy (or lease) a Ford next time.

 

But everyone reading this forum, who has this problem, should consider writing to the NTSB (or Transport Canada) on their web pages to register a safety complaint, and maybe consider writing to GM. Just for the principle of the thing.

 

In the mean time, a good HID kit is a practical solution for owners. And not that hard to install.

Edited April 7, 2017 by SierraRover

[cruizin01]

HID kit is the only way to go with these lights. I cant recall ever owning a vehicle with factory lights that poor.

[Shredzy]

Installed the Morimoto Elite 35w/5500k HID kit in my truck yesterday, everything went smooth, working as it should!

 

Definitely worth the time to install as everyone knows ,even GM, that the original lighting in the '14-'15 Sierras is unacceptable!

 

 

Looks like I'll need to upgrade the fog lamps to something that is close to the 5500k of the headlights, any suggestions for some simple plug-n-play bulbs for the fogs?

(May not need to use them much now with the HID's)

Edited September 23, 2017 by Shredzy