Copying and pasting from another forum I posted this on.
Let me begin with my story from 2 years ago when I first bought the car. I have a 2004 Saab 9-5 Aero with visibility package, which means I have the bi-xenon headlights (and non-working rain sensing wipers). The car was picked up in September of 2012 and had some eBay special 6000k bulbs, which were okay at the time but I wanted the OEM bulbs, so I bought some and installed them. First time firing up new bulbs can put a little more drain on ballasts as the bulbs need a little more to burn in correctly and blam-o I lost my Driver's side headlight ballast on first start up. ****.
Well, I went online to eBay to pick up a used one and found a guy that specializes in selling just used OEM ballasts, so I picked one up for $200 from him, not knowing at the time and didn't know for another year, that the Saab's need Saab specific ballasts to work correctly 100%. It arrived and I installed the ballasts, the lights worked and with the lights on I had no Xenon warning light HOORAY! Turn the lights off, Xenon warning light BOOOO! Well my lights worked, I had other things to worry about and it was getting too cold to really be messing with the headlights at this point, so away I went on my marry way into the wild blue yonder.
A few months later, when I went to have my A/C system recharged, that sometimes this happens and the car just needs to recalibrate the light and I'll be fine and the guy at the shop offered to do it for free because it was easy. He starts with the Tech-II and then I hear a "Huh? This is odd." Turns out he can't even properly communicate with this ballast so he asks me, have you replaced it and of course the answer is yes. "Ah I see, did Mr. eBay forget to mention that Saab likes Saab parts." Yes...Yes he did. ****.
So...I'll deal with that another day; the leaves grew on the trees, the days got hot and long, I put in a new suspension, the leaves changed colors and fell off the trees, and then it snowed...a lot last winter. I had since upgraded to what I thought was authentic Osram CBI bulbs at $200 and I was happy....or so I thought.
Come out to the car in 20* weather after work, it is dark at 5 now so I need my headlights, turn them on and start going down the road. I am looking left to pull out into traffic and as I turn my head back to the front of my car, I saw a flash of light, "Hmmm, was that me? What was that?" A few seconds, FLASH....**** it is me. They would only really do a quick off/on for the first 2 minutes off driving, after that, they were fine. Never really found out the answer to this one, but I do think I got knockoff bulbs, because as soon as I put the OEMs back in and it didn't happen. ****.
In this time, I had done a lot of research into this Xenon system and what makes them tick. I found out a lot and how for projectors, Saab was a little too hasty with them and they really have less output then 99-01 9-5 halogen headlights. Xenon systems and HID Projectors were very much in their infancy back in the early 2000s and.....Dave you are getting side tracked....back to the story.
Okay, so it is winter when this flashing is occurring so I hunt around with my wads of research and said screw it, lets replace everything in this system. So I wait for a nice black Friday sale (when eEuro had some decent sales) and scored 2 BRAND NEW Saab specific ballasts for $180/piece with 2 year warranties. I also picked up 2 BRAND NEW Osram CBI bulbs from TheRetrofitSource with 2 year warranties for $200. AWESOME!
The leaves come back on the trees, the grass turns green again, and ol'Dave here decides to buy a house so he can park his Saab in a garage. I finally get some down time to put in the new goodies and clean the leveling sensors all in hopes that ol'Dave here can go through one winter without having to worry about his headlights. I decided to keep the other Saab specific ballast from the Passenger side headlight as a backup and just sell this other ballast on eBay. This is where things begin to just suck.
I've been listing this ballast since May, I had done some looking around on ebay and the prices have definitely come down significantly since when I bought it, oh well it happens. One thing does catch my eye with some of the other listings. "We will make a video of the ballast in full operation before shipping it to you, this is to protect us from people who just want to test their system." (as a side note, I noticed some of these guys no longer sell ballasts) First sign that this isn't going to end well. Since these ballasts that we use in the 9-5's is connected to not only power the light but also control the level motor and sensors; people will often buy these ballasts to test and make sure other parts of their system work correctly and use them to troubleshoot their issues, which can often blow the ballast or controller.
I sold this spare ballast twice, both times they came back with people claiming it didn't work...and this is why ebay sucks, because you can make a video of it working, describe everything to a T and eBay can force you to take it back, giving the money back. eBay has it in such a way that no matter what you do as a seller, you are screwed...period. Both times this ballast came back and it worked fine. I made video of it working before I shipped it out, but I really had no leg to stand on with eBay's wonderful policies. All I can do is report them, which I imagine drops my report into the black hole of the internet, never to be seen again.
I finally sold it again for a 3rd time last week for a measly $80. I had 3 pictures in the listing and a VIDEO in the listing to show it worked. I had checked with my phone about 30 minutes before it would end and no bids. ****. 30 minutes later, I get an email and it said my item sold! HOORAY...I guess. I had no watchers and this guy swooped in at the last minute and bid, cool. I ship everything out the next business day because I work 9 to 5, so that is usually the best I can do.
Here is my listing:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/161431799978...84.m1559.l2649
Here is the message I get from the guy today:
Dear davevq11,
i received your ballast and not happy.
the lucking clip on the ballast is broken.
the ballast around edges and holes have brown spots so I know it was in the water.
clearly visible defects not mentioned in listing and pictures do not show that.
will email you pictures tonight.
I want $20 partial refund so I can sell it as is with these defects or full refund when I return back to you.
let me know how we can solve this problem.
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Let me breathe into a paper bag before I rant.
*Breathe's very deep*
First off, the locking clips are on the connector ends that go into the ballast. The ballast wire has the clip piece and when I tested the ballast before shipping, it connected and worked just fine. The 12 pin connector is just like a connector for a power supply of a computer, while this wasn't tested in my video, these ballasts are locked into a headlight and because of how tight these connectors are, they don't exactly just fall out.
Second, you can clearly see in my pictures that yes, there are are some brown areas around the screw holes for the side of the ballast exposed to the elements. As for the part of the ballast that sits inside the headlight, it is clean and has never seen water. If it had seen water damage, the ballast wouldn't work. Not sure why something like this needs to look picture perfect for something that is buried in a car headlight and hidden.
So what we have here is a guy who saw the auction at last minute, swooped in and bought it without looking at anything. And that ladies and gentlemen, is why ebay sucks and it isn't even worth the effort to sell our ballasts used on ebay. My only choice here is just give this guy $20, I can't really do anything about it.
