Aftermarket HID's impact FM reception?

[dambay]

Hey folks. So I noticed this a couple days ago, when I was just about to leave for work. Normally when I start my car, the stereo is either off or on CD/AUX, so I never noticed it before. Tuesday morning I turned my car on, and the stereo was left on FM. After waiting about 10 seconds i turned my lights on, and reception got noticeably worse. It went back to normal again when I turned the lights back off. I'm guessing that the ballasts are causing some sort of electrical interference, which is impacting my reception.

This also explains why my fiancee gets great reception on the same station in the same location. I wondered why this was until I realized it was the HID's causing it. Has anyone experienced this problem, or want to check if it the same thing happens?

Currently i have the ballasts mounted with double sided tape about 1 1/2 feet behind the headlights, on the far left and right sides of the engine bay. I'm just wondering if I would reduce or eliminate this problem by mounting it inside the bumper, so there is no contact with any metal on the car. Any suggestions? If i remember I will post pics of the mounting positions tonight.

[Aitch]

I've had this happen in both my cars. Only when I'm underground or far away from the broadcasting towers though.

[Default User]

make sure you have a good grounding point.
its possible that any grease, grime, rust proofing oil, etc is spoiling the connection

[dambay]

I've had this happen in both my cars. Only when I'm underground or far away from the broadcasting towers though.

Yeah, its not really noticable once I get closer to Toronto, mainly just the first maybe 15 minutes of my drive from Barrie.


make sure you have a good grounding point.
its possible that any grease, grime, rust proofing oil, etc is spoiling the connection

What do you mean by grounding point? My HID kit doesn't come with a separate grounding wire. Do you just mean the contact of the ballast to the car? Cause there's not much i can do to improve that, aside from drilling holes in the metal inside the engine bay and screwing the ballasts in that way.

[gabbygenier]

he meant the ground wire. where did you connect it and is it making a good connection to ground.

[dambay]

Aftermarket HID kits don't come with a separate ground wire. At least mine didn't.

[dambay]

From what I've read, and please correct me if I'm wrong, the First Gen 3's require a relay harness to power Aftermarket HID's correctly, and this relay harness has its own ground wire. With the second gens, the kits are plug and play and use all of the stock wiring, and do not have a separate ground wire. I probably should have googled this problem first, as pretty much every other vehicle forum is reporting the same problems. I suppose I COULD add in a relay harness which would give me a separate ground wire, but I don't really feel like doing that.

This isn't a major problem, I just wanted to see if anyone else has experienced the same, and see what solutions are available.

[Aitch]

I know I'm not helping at all but my solution has always been to switch to MP3s when I'm that far north.

[dambay]

Haha no that's exactly what I do. I will just listen to CDs or through Bluetooth until I'm within range.