Off topic - 2012 Silverado headlight intermittent failure

[termite]

2012 Silverado 2500. Drivers headlight on my mother’s truck intermittently fails to come on. She’s had the pigtail replaced several (3-4) times and it works for a few weeks and goes flakey again. When it doesn’t come on, I’ve been told shaking the bulb socket makes it work for day or two. I‘ll be doing some maintenance on the truck today and wanted to see if you all have any pointers to check while I’m looking at it. I plan to check pins in the light socket and anything else reasonably accessible in the harness for looseness or corrosion.

I’ve only got the truck for today as I drove back home yesterday (~5 hours) so she has car seats for my kids while I am picking up my wife after she gets off work today. Heading back down for the weekend around 8 tonight.

 

[termite]

Resolved- hopefully. Pulled the grille, headlight, and harness. Checked out the pigtail for bulb then main connector to chassis and all looked good. Clean contacts, not breaks in wires (visible at least), pins in plugs were all seated well and tight. checked resistance across all wires pin to pin, including with bulb attached. Noted resistance with bulb attached and compared to resistance across PS bulb and found the likely culprit of burnt contact inside the bulb connection. New bulb should resolve the issue.

My suspicion is the person, not me, that replaced the pigtail several times never swapped in a new bulb resulting in the burnt contact continuing to present as intermittent failure.

 

[someotherguy]

Funny coincidence that my buddy with a late model Suburban was up at work the other night and I mentioned to him his driver side headlight was out. He seemed surprised and got out of the truck to see it himself. About an hour later he had picked his wife up and mentioned it to her, and she said no, it's working. He gets out again to see and it's indeed working...

I replaced several pigtails (and bulbs) on a 2009 3500HD I used to drive for work. On that truck it wasn't the bulb as the bulb had been replaced several times, too. The bulb would last several months then just blow. About every other time I replaced the bulb, I'd notice the pigtail had burned up, too, so I'd replace both. No idea what was causing it except maybe poor quality replacement pigtails - whatever brand the nearby auto parts store carried. Wasn't running any gimmicky bulbs, just standard replacement halogens. Always the same position - driver low beam. I don't think I ever replaced any of the other 3 bulbs.

Richard

 

[termite]

Funny coincidence that my buddy with a late model Suburban was up at work the other night and I mentioned to him his driver side headlight was out. He seemed surprised and got out of the truck to see it himself. About an hour later he had picked his wife up and mentioned it to her, and she said no, it's working. He gets out again to see and it's indeed working...

I replaced several pigtails (and bulbs) on a 2009 3500HD I used to drive for work. On that truck it wasn't the bulb as the bulb had been replaced several times, too. The bulb would last several months then just blow. About every other time I replaced the bulb, I'd notice the pigtail had burned up, too, so I'd replace both. No idea what was causing it except maybe poor quality replacement pigtails - whatever brand the nearby auto parts store carried. Wasn't running any gimmicky bulbs, just standard replacement halogens. Always the same position - driver low beam. I don't think I ever replaced any of the other 3 bulbs.

Richard

Seems to follow suit with the other trucks of that generation I’ve seen running with a light out. My mom doesn’t think the bulb has been replaced in the years she has had the truck, just the pigtail. Currently has a Delphi pigtail on it with heavier wire than the OE harness it’s connected to.

Bulb is a Phillips H11. Same as I run in my wife’s Kia.

 

[someotherguy]

Yep, H11 for the low beam on that 2009 3500HD, and also my friend's Suburban. I thought maybe it was a "hotter" bulb or something, but specs show them to be 55W and draw about 4-4.5A, very similar to the 9006 our trucks use.

Richard