I have a 2009 xB, I'm the original owner. Thursday night, all lights were working fine. Friday night, the passenger low beam stopped working while I was driving, I only knew about it when I got pulled over. My dad is a mechanic, so he replaced the bulb, but that didn't work obviously. He also checked the fuses, which are all ok, and put both the old and replacement bulb on the driver side, where they both worked. High beams and blinker lights are fine. No indication of wires being damaged by mice or anything like that. Thoughts???? I have to have this fixed by August 16th, which is my court date.

 

Could be an issue with the headlight switch.

 

Test the power and ground for that particular light with a multi meter. Quite possible you are not getting a good ground.

 

please forgive the fact that I no next to nothing about car electronics, but by switch, you mean the one on the steering column? Or is there another place to look? All other lights (right high beam, left high beam, left low beam, right blinkers, left blinkers, and all tail lights) are working fine.

 

I'll ask my dad to check that again. He says he checked the power and it was fine, but I'll try to get another test on the ground. He's a mechanic, but doesn't work with anything new (mostly old tractors - he was a vehicle mechanic until 1995).

 

Does anyone know where I would find a relay, harness, or anything else that might be relevant? The Toyota dealer wants $100 an hour for diagnostics, which I simply don't have. I bought and paid for this car before I became disabled, and now that I'm on a very low income, I just don't have the money to pay for that - I really need to get this figured out at home if possible. Or is it possible to just replace the entire light assembly on that side? Are there any options to try?

 

I was referring to the stalk that turns them on. Might not be the issue, but without other testing, it's hard to know if its the source. Unlikely if everything else is working though.

You can swap a light out, it's usually not too bad of a thing to do. Sometimes the bumper has to come off to access mounting brackets for it. Electrical is sometimes difficult to pin down, might be worth it for a shop to diagnose instead of just throwing parts at it.

 

Have him test the power for that socket using the ground in the socket as his ground and then with battery negative as the ground for the meter. If it tests good with the battery and not good with the socket then the ground for the socket is bad. It's also possible that the socket itself has gone bad.