Xenon light failure
 

My right hand (driver's side--mine is a rhd) xenon headlamp has failed. It flickered on for a minute so I assume it is not the bulb. Any ideas? I thought they lasted forever!

no they definately do not last forever, you should switch the bulbs from left to right to verify that the high voltage ignitor modules are not the problem,if the bulb is bad i would suggest that you replace both bulbs as set, if you replace only one, the new one will be dimmer than the old one, they have a time that the new ones are dim for a while. below is a document related to the break-in period

Ouch, sounds expensive. Just pray it's not the control module...

In case you need ballast I have one for $150

Just to show my somewhat envious position - have you thought about using:

Philips Blue Vision

"For the first time here is a blue bulb worthy of our Best Buy award. If you must have the xenon look, the Blue Vision is the best of those tested"

Available in: H1, H3, H4, H7, 9005, 9006 - in stock and ready to ship.

and sell both your headlamps and dead HID lamps to me for some ridiculously low price?? ;) or better still swap my fully working units for yours ;) ;)

BTW - HID lamps are available from www.powerbulbs.co.uk and are around 100GBP each.

Lea

Car's at the dealer today. The need for two headlamps is too pressing to wait...

I'll post the result.

I'm told by the dealer that the bulb is fine (which I had already explained, but hey...) and it needs a new control unit. Not the end of the world on price: less than 100quid ($190) plus a half hour to fit (actually it looks like a b**tard to fit, would take me days and skinned knuckles). It'll tot up to 200quid, though with tax, it always does.

Needless to say, they do not have the part. Do they keep any parts these days? Should be in tomorrow, though. We'll see.

Meanwhile I'm in my wife's BMW 120d, which is one hell of a car. But that's another story.

Lea:

The xenon lamps in my 129 are nothing to write home about. In fact, the dipped-beam lighting is pretty woeful, they do not stretch sufficiently far ahead at all and the cut-off is very sharp. What are the regular halogens like? Any worse and you might as well be blind-folded!

JJ

The regular lights are rather poor (and have got to be worse than the HIDs) as often I can't tell they're even on! For my sins I've bought a set of 50% extra bright Philips bulbs http://www.autobulbsdirect.co.uk/product.php?productid=16320&cat=255&page=1 a little 'boy racer' I know but hey if they actually work that can't be bad and I do so like the blue tinge of HID.

They're supposedly filled with xenon gas which burns at 4000K and so further towards the daylight spectrum than the reg halogen gas filled, so we'll see.

I'll take some before and after shots and try to give a subjective comparison when they arrive - a sorta belated crimbo pressie:)

Cheers
Lea

Well I went to collect the car from the dealer last night and... it wasn't fixed. I was incadescent with rage, having been dragged to the other side of town only to find they hadn't effected a repair; worse, the tell-tale light was still showing in the dash, so it must have been obvious to them as well. Morons. We'll see what happens today.

Meanwhile, in the new Mercedes Enthusiast for Jan 06 there is an article about the 129 SL73. Its owner has retrofitted it with bi-xenon lights. Has anyone heard about these?

These bulbs will give you a brighter white...and that's about it. If you really want more illumination, use a set of 100/80W H4 bulbs. Or even better, 130/100W bulbs (although these may challenge your wiring a bit...)

I have a set of 100/80 bulbs, and you can have them if you're interested. Free. (I used the 60/55 bulbs in my '79 simply because I don't want to overtax the 25-year-old wires.) Postal shipping should be cheap because they're so light!

Thanks for the kind offer, much appreciated - but hopefully my new 'sexy' lights are on there way.

These lamps do offer more light output, as confirmed by AutoExpress so hopefully no need to melt the headlamp casing with the extra UV a set of 130/100 would provide ;-)

Cheers
Lea

Without wishing to go too much off topic I just wanted to say that I'm (so far) very impressed with the new Phillips lamps - they are truly whiter. Autobulbs-direct also provided a set of 'whiter' complimentary side lights free of charge and even though they look deep blue are beautifully white when illuminated - see attached (old on the left, new lamps on the right).

To compare, I fitted both H4 headlamp and side lamp to one half of the car and the difference is amazing - the previous Osram's look seriously yellow and I didn't even notice how bad they were. OK, so they're not HID quality but they are significantly whiter and they do what packet says!

Just one last point, even though mine were on the 'boy racer' Xmas list (with the blue tipped quartz glass) the final effect is a splash of blue at certain angles (quite minimal) and a truly white look.


I did try and take a couple of photos to show the comparison but my camera didn't do the difference any justice :(

On the whole I can thoroughly recommend the Philip's & white side lamp range.


Cheers
Lea

I had to buy a new headlamp at a staggering cost of £750 (US$1,350). I didn't have time to work out for myself what the problem was or to source it more cheaply from Bosch, it being the day before Christmas and all that sort of thing. I didn't have to pay any labour.

JJ

You have just convinced me that although HIDs look and function superbly at 750GBP per lamp (even with a lifetime expected operation) I'll stick to the more traditional H4 at 20GBP per pair.

BTW - arnt you supposed to replace both at once? Also, why so expensive from the dealer. Philips HIDs are only 100UKP?!


Lea