About 8 months ago I replaced my factory OEM 9007 headlight bulbs with PIAA Star White 3800K bulbs. They definently made an improvement over the OEM's! However, after about 6 months my wife was driving the truck and she said she heard a pop and noticed one of the headlight low beams went out. I have the DRL feature enabled so the low beams get lots of use but 6 months seemed a little premature for a new bulb failure. However, the other PIAA headlight bulb is still doing great.

Since I bought these factory new bulbs off eBay from "One Way Motorsport" and they advertised a 1 year warranty I emailed them about a replacement bulb. They did not respond to my first email. After about 3 weeks I emailed them again at another email address listed for this dealer. Never received any response from One Way Motorsport to my warranty inquiry.

A member here on this forum suggested I contact PIAA Service directly. I went to their web site and emailed them and received a reply that PIAA Warranty Service would cover the warranty if the dealer did not respond. I faxed my in eBay receipt to PIAA Service and waited a couple of weeks but heard nothing back. Figured I had "been had" since I bought off eBay and PIAA somehow decided to not honor my purchase/warranty. Well today, to my surprise, I got home and noticed a small UPS package sitting on my front porch and its from PIAA. Not only did PIAA replace my failed bulb but they sent me a complete set of two! Mind you, I did not have to return any product to PIAA or even pay for shipping. PIAA completely backed their product at zero cost to me!

I think it is important to recognize good customer service when it happens. PIAA - Way to Go! and a big thanks to Marco at PIAA Service!

Now, time to swap out the one OEM bulb I stuck back in as a temporary fix.

 

Thats why they are good bulbs. They are a reputable company. Warn did the same thing for me a couple of times. my jeep has a locking hub conversion and when the old retaining nut design had backed off causing the bearing to distegrate, it killed a hub as well. first they sent me out the new locking nuts and washers that would have cost me $50 from a dealer (hoaks in PA) but they said to try giving warn a call. I then recieved an incorrect hub for a cj and when i called, i was told to keep it and not worry a new one was on the way. Find a friend that can use the other one. Then they found out i had the old spindle forgings and sent me out new ones asap and told me to change them right away ( the old ones had cases of failure from improper tempering) so basically i had a whole new $800 hub set.

A friend bought new hubs and they forgot one O rings. Gave them a call and got new ones within the week.
Its great when a company will take care of you.

 

It might of been me who told you to contact customer service
Cant remember but I've had great service from them over the yrs
Glad everything worked out, PIAA does stand behind their product line
if you take the time to write them as you did.

 

03CTDCO - Yes, you were the one who suggested that I contact PIAA directly. Thanks for steering me in the right direction! Really good customer service from PIAA USA!

 

Thanks for the feedback, XZILR8N! I've been thinking about getting those and probably will now.

On a related subject, what exactly did your dealer do to enable the DRLs? Mine claims the only way is to use the DRB scan tool to tell the truck it is a Canadian model. We decided against that because many other things might get changed in the process such as display units (standard to metric) and possibly emissions. Have you experienced any such "side-effects"? Thanks!

 

Bought some cheapies that were marginally better than oem. Wish I had just gone PIIA then, but better now than never. Ya just sold me.

 

who sells piaas on line?..........thanks,bama

 

Fredbert - I just took it in to the dealer and told them to enable the DRL's. They charged me a propgramming fee but I felt the safety factor was well worth it. I too heard that they change it to Canadian in one of the forums, but not sure that is factual. In any event, there was absolutely NO side effects after the reprogramming to DRL. They really work great, just release the parking brake and the reduced intensity DRL's kick in automatically once the engine is running.

Bama - Just do a Google search or eBay search using "PIAA 9007" you will get lots of choices. Just try to find a reputable dealer and don't fall prey to cheap knock offs.

 

I was really glad to read this thread, because one of my piaa's went out last night. no pop noise, but the lamp out indicator lit up and i now have an official 'pdiddle'! i hope they will cover it.

 

You know... KC Hilights warranties their bulbs for like 23 years. I've used them and they were great for a loooong time. I put $500+ worth of PIAA lights (much more expensive than KC) on my truck six months ago. Three months ago a blew a $25 bulb. I went out to their site expecting to read about some sort of warranty that would cover it. Their warranty on their site, however, states that they do not warranty their bulbs.

I was a bit disgusted and didn't even bother replacing the bulb. I just stopped using them. Maybe I should give them a call about it.

 

From what I understand the DRL run the HIGH BEAMS at a reduced voltage NOT the low beams. This is for better visability as the high beams project further than the low beams.

 

Thanks for that tidbit of info, that is very interesting. Never thought to check that (not sure how I would as I don't recall seeing the high beam indicator illuminated when DRL's are on). However, that certainly makes a lot of sense: That's really a good way to go with better visibility and you are putting burn time on the high beam filaments not the low beams which get much more use at night than the highs. I guess my theory as to why one of the PIAA's low beams failed in only 6 months from extended DRL use is not the answer. Guess there might have been a defect in the low beam filament causing it to fail early. Either way, I'm now back to two PIAA's burning brightly day and night

 

I bought a set for a road trip from Vancouver to Toronto. By the time we made it to the Ontario border both bulbs had burnt out and of course it was the middle of the night whe the second one went. I'm putting in an HID kit. They are way brighter than any bulb that just plugs in.

 

Well let me give you my Canadian opinion. I hate Day Time Running Lights period. Call me old school or whatever but if the sun is shinning and your lights are on...take off your hate and bow your head your on your way to a dirt bath ceremony. I hate the metric system since the liberals stuffed it down our way in the 70's. Okay worried about safety turn on the headlights... think the same way about the airconditioner coming on when when I select defrost on a cold winters day up north Way off topic sorry guys

 

Well guys after replacing my original failed PIAA bulb (Left low-beam) with the new one PIAA sent free of charge, now my RIGHT PIAA headlight (low-beam only) recently failed as well (both failed in less than a year). I did a test to find out if the DRL's do in fact use the less used High beam filament as the DRL filament. NOT SO, the DRL's use the LOW BEAM filament only. I think with PIAA's extra brightness (hotter) and overtaxing use of using a performance bulb with DRL's causes it to degrade filament longetivity.

Even with PIAA's great customer service, I would not recommend replacing your OEM headlight bulbs when using DRL's with PIAA's bulbs unless you don't mind the expense and hassle of replacing failed bulbs every few months or driving around one eyed until you can make the swap.