one headlamp brighter than the other

[Todd Soden]

I noticed on my 2000 gen 4.5 that the divers headlamp is brighter than the passengers. Upon closer inspection i noticed that the small reflective cover that goes overtop of the low beam light bulb is no longer silver but more like a burnt brown colour. Is there an easy way to replace or remove this piece? I am not sure why it got this way, but suspect it had to do with a high heat (higher than normal).

[BlueFusion6851]

If it really bothers you, just buy a headlight off of ebay (or 2 of the crystal clear ones) I don't think there IS a good way to fix it, unless you can take the reflector part out.

[Eye8Pussies]

the only way would be to take the lense off your headlight, and then see if it's just a burnt film on top, or if the reflective plastic itself is burnt

if you really don't want to buy a new headlight, and you've taken it apart, you can try using tin foil/aluminum foil to line the inside of the cap to make it reflective again

[NTL]

My reflective covers that go over the lowbeams is the same way you described it. It has a slight burnt brown color to it. I'm running modded 9005 silverstars in my lowbeams and thought the extra wattage/heat was causing it. Are you on stock bulbs?

[randomman84]

i have the same set up as above and mine look that way too. I wonder if it is the extra heat from the higher wattage bulbs? My silverstars are blowing way too fast too. Do you have that problem?

[Mike Gerber]

Originally Posted by randomman84

i have the same set up as above and mine look that way too. I wonder if it is the extra heat from the higher wattage bulbs? My silverstars are blowing way too fast too. Do you have that problem?

It is definitely the heat from the higher wattage bulbs. I have a friend who is a professional Mazda tech and he has seen numerous cars come in with non-standard bulbs that are melting the headlight housings, some on relatively new cars. He says Mazda won't replace these items under warranty. It's a customer pay item, since a non-recommended part was used and caused the problem.

Mike