HID lights causing radio interference

[kosteniuks17]

Hey guys I just have a question...
My Mazda protege5 145,xxx '03 has been having problems with the radio been very staticky (if that a word, ha) when I turn on my HID 8000 lights. I just recently installed a new stereo head unit and HID lights and everything works great, the aux and cd etc. But as soon as night comes and I need to turn on my lights then the radio all of a sudden has soooo much interference. I was wondering the problem might possibly be that the lights aren't grounded, so maybe I need a wire to connect the lights to the battery to ground it or something. Just sucks when I feel like listening to the radio and its all static at night. Was wondering if anyone might have had this problem or might have some advice.
Thanks,

 

[iJay]

you need to re-ground ur hids (if grounded externally) other wise check the ground wire on ur deck make sure 1. its connected porperly 2. make sure ur antenna wire from the car to ur deck is not being touched by other wires. at any rate its a simple fix. Sounds like a grounding issue.

 

[jtlinna]

X2 my HIDs were doing the same thing.. The 55w high-beams were killer.. Redid my grounds for the harness and all is well.

JT

 

[Teeson]

I was just hearing about this! Guy came into a shop with the same problem, aparently pioneer head units will shut off their RCA out under too much interference. The car had cheap HID's in it, when one ballast was disconnected the noise would stop.

Check the grounds, if that doesn't fix it, one (or even both) of your HID's ballasts are bad

 

[kosteniuks17]

Yah it might be the ballast issue but Im not really sure as what to do and how to ground them. I have attached some images below to show you what it looks like and if there is any way I did something wrong. I have a feeling like its a grounding issue to be honest but not sure what wires I would need and where to hook it up or anything like that, kind of a noob about that ha. I just velcro'd one of the converters to the side of the car and the other is connected to the battery. Thanks for your help guys.

 

[Teeson]

Look for black wires going to the chassis, or double check the manual that came with the HIDs. Sometimes they even have "ground" written on the connection or the wire. It should be grounded to the chassis, if it isn't then it's probably grounded through the headlight harness. Then I'd recommend grounding it to the chassis.
If that seems like its over your head, then its prob a good idea to go to a shop that does HID's and get them to fix it.

 

[jtlinna]

How are you running your HIDs? Do you have an after market wire harness? Or are you running the ballasts directly off the factory low beam socket?

JT

 

[Hank3]

I'm running the low beams off the factory sockets. It's been three months since they've been installed and no issues thus far. Here are a couple pics of my ballast location: