freakwithracket
Vendor
It is hard to say. You obviously have an issue with the DDM Tuning ballasts. No ballast should have a 5 minute rebound rate when they are simply shut off. Some of them have a rapid on/off protection that will keep them off like that. This commonly happens when you put in non CAN-BUS enabled ballasts into CAN-BUS cars such as the MK5 and up. But it should not do that simply because you turned them off. I agree that the harness might also be contributing as far as that high beam issue. The harness operates with a capacitor that keeps power running to the ballast briefly while power is switch from low beam to high beam. This ensures that there is no loss of light during the switch. It sounds like perhaps that capacitor is out and when you switch there is the loss of power. When that loss of power occurs, however briefly, your DDM ballasts are doing their thing and not restarting..You're killing me Jeff! I'm now figuring out how to finance the upgrade.
I'm also interested in the harness upgrade. I'm having an issue with the DDM tuning ballasts not wanting to hot-strike which equals no headlights for a couple minutes while they take their time out. I'm not sure if it's over heat or what but if I turn the lights off and try to turn them back on shortly after (think drive through at night and you turn off the car to place an order) the lights will not re-light unless they are switched off a couple minutes. Like gmenounos mentioned, the fogs are my work around until they come back to life.
Recently I've also lost one or both headlights when I flash the high beams. I'm sure it's the same ballast issue but I think the harness is a contributing factor too as the ballast shouldn't lose power while the shutter actuates (this is a jetta).
I'll probably just order a 3.0a kit with your ballasts and glass lenses to solve it for good .
A side possibility is a bad turn signal switch. The capacitor in the harness can only last so long. In some cases the switch gets dirty and the contact points stop working. One of the common symptoms leading up to failure is a delayed response when activating the high beams. This actually happened to me personally. I first had that symptom where the turn signal would randomly click out for no good reason. I fixed it for a year by using some electrical contact lube from radio shack. It came back this year. Right before the turn signal switch died entirely my high beams had a 2 second delay on them..the issue was fixed three weeks later when I replaced the turn signal switch with a new one..like I said, a bit more of a long shot but a definite possibility.
In any event, the harness was a weak point. In the end it was just time to make the switch.
Jeff