I’ve had my brand new roadster for just over a fortnight now and within the first few days I noticed fairly heavy condensation on the inside of both the headlamp lenses. So that I didn’t have the car at the dealers to sort this out I thought I’d get rid of it myself, at least in the first instance. I removed the main beam bulb holders and directed a compressor air-line into the inside of each headlamp, directly at the condensation, which cleared remarkably quickly. I blew air in for quite a while hoping to exchange the damp air for fresh drier air, and indeed this worked for about a week when I noticed a small amount of condensation again, in both lamps. Not anywhere as bad as before mind you.
I repeated the procedure with the air-line and again appear to have dry and condensation free lenses.
Has anybody else experienced the same problem, and if so what was the outcome?
I’m hoping that the moisture had accumulated during shipping and storage, and that this last clearance will have removed the problem altogether. If not, and the problem returns then it’ll have to be taken back to the dealer’s for rectification. I’m wondering if the extreme heat of the xenon dip beam lamp is somehow causing moist air to be drawn in as the lamp assembly cools. Any thoughts would be much appreciated?
It does seem strange though that the lamp assemblies are the same type as I had on the Vectra (albeit without xenons) and they never had a drop of moisture inside the headlamps [:^)] Is this common with other MX-5s?
It’s not common, more so if it happens and clears it’s fine. There are different factors that contribute to it happening (headlamp useage, ambient temperature etc) so where one vehicle may suffer from it another may not.
It’s a phenomenon that’s common accross the Mazda range.
Out of interest, is your car an import? Xenon headlamps are not available for the UK market.
Now you’ve got me confused! The car was bought from a UK Mazda dealer as a UK model and the dipped beam lamps look like xenon - misted lens and all. The manual also specifies that they’re xenon.
Thanks for putting my mind at rest about the condensation though, and bringing to my attention that it’s a ‘Mazda thing’.
A Xenon lamp (also known as gas discharge or High Intensity Discharge (HID) lamps) will have headlamp washers fitted. Fitted to RX-8, Mazda6, Mazda3 and perhaps CX-7 in the UK.
Are you sure the manual doesn’t say “*some models”?
Ah, now a few things do make a bit more sense. You are in fact spot on, and I’ve just misled myself into thinking they were xenon. I’ve looked into the low beam headlamp lens and far from it being misted (this appears purely to be an effect of the lens optics) I can clearly see a halogen filament (greatly magnified of course), not an HID tube. The lens & lamp also line up with a standard halogen socket, and what I at a casual glance took to be the xenon electronics and ballast module is probably the manual headlamp level motor assembly.
I’ve never had a car with a halogen headlamp that used a lens (something that’s characteristic of xenon), but only the usual reflector type, so this made me check the manual where I had indeed overlooked the ‘*some models’ reference. What I also couldn’t understand was why, if they were xenon, the car wasn’t equipped with automatic headlamp levelers and washers, as required by the relevant law.
The revelation prompted by your response has pleased me no end, as I’m not that big a fan of xenon, and much prefer halogen. They’re cheaper, can more easily be changed by myself and don’t have both the sharply contrasting beam spread cut-off nor that annoying colour shift at the extremes of the beam.
Once again, thanks for the clarification Robbie, much obliged,
Use a hair drier on low to dry it out, compressed air is damp which is why compressors have a drain on the air tank to drain the water accumulation away.
Pollyana: I intended to do just as you describe but wanted to get two sockets off the back of the assembly so that the warm air from a hair-drier could be blown through the unit. However, getting access to all but the low beam socket is a real pain, despite having quite small hands, and I didn’t want to go to all the hassle of taking off the inner mudguards just yet, so I came up with the idea of using the compressor so that the air could be exchanged back out through the access aperture, around the air line. I did keep in mind that the air would not be totally dry, but we’re in the middle of a very dry and settled period so I reasoned that the ambient air would be considerably drier than the condensation laden interior air of the lamp unit. For this reason I did also drain the compressor tank and recharge it before use.
Touch wood, it does seem to have worked fine and there’s absolutely no evidence of moisture in the unit as yet.
I have an 03 Nevada and the driver’s side headlamp has heavy condensation. I’ve used hairdriers, which clear it, but then it returns within a few hours. I’ve taken out the bulbs and used kitchen towels on the end of rubber tubes to wipe the inside dry etc. I’ve got rid of it four times now and yet it just returns. any ideas??? I cleared the condensation this morning, warm and sunny all day but by mid afternoon it was back again, as bad as ever. I’m thinking the unit will have to be replaced but Mazda price is £295, without fitting, so would like to try and cure it myself. If I can find out how to remove the headlamp from the car I can replace the seal and see if that helps.
Eventually managed to get headlamp off but made the mistake of watching aYank on youtube showing how to separate the parts by heating it in an oven and gently prising them apart. This works fine but the molten sealant is a nightmare and if, like me , you leave it in the oven too long, parts of the plastic mishape. The putting back together was very awkward too and now, instead of condensation on the inside, the top quarter of the lamp is solid white! Have to source another one now.