My Hypocritical drive to work today

[Welly]

Jumped in the car this morning, pitch black, started the car and got a 'Bulb Failure' warning now being a Volvo driver I normally keep a stock of H7's for just an event but today I knew I didn't have a spare, so there was I driving one-eyed and after all the times I've criticized motorists for using Foggies or having badly-aimed headlights

I was embarrassed greatly, I even got my speech ready in case I got pulled by the rozzers: "it blew this morning honest...yeah right!"......got to work and ordered a pair of Osrams from Amazon but it came back with a 1-week lead time so I've probably got to buy a cheap bulb over the weekend to keep me going.

[steve_earwig]

That's fair enough, you knew straight away and will do something about it as soon as - at least you're not driving around for months oblivious to the fact that your car's a Cyclops or your misaligned and/or overpowered headlamps are blinding everyone

Volvos eat headlamp bulbs then? You wanna get some leds you do, they'll last forever. True you won't be able to see where the f%ck you're going but...

[Welly]

Volvos eat headlamp bulbs then?

Yes, they're on when the engines running, you can turn them off but there's no 'lights on' buzzer (great) I did leave them on once while parked so I just leave the lights alone now - they all come on and go off with the ignition key, fair enough really at least I can't NOT put my lights on like some people.

The standard car leaves the factory with long-life H7's, the filament is as tough as old boots but the light output is shockingly bad, as a result 'uprated' bulbs are a must but they suffer short lives (I'm replacing them in pairs probably at 10-monthly intervals) this isn't the end of the world but if I did 'normal' UK mileage I'd be replacing bulbs every 3 months or so.

I had to laugh the other morning; a car came towards me with only one headlamp lit on one side and only one foglamp lit on the other in a kinda "this is all I've got" way! even the sidelight had blown in the non-working headlamp - at least I'm not that bad.

Good news is that Ozzy Nightbreaker Plus's are down to about £10.00 per pair now but guess what? there's a 'new' exciting version been released...........@£32.00 per pair.

[steve_earwig]

What's exciting about them then? Do they do anything thrilling or does the excitement happen when they both blow on an unlit road in the middle of the night?

16 quid each, hmm, not much more than the yoyo's weird and wonderful tail light bulbs

I had to laugh the other morning; a car came towards me with only one headlamp lit on one side and only one foglamp lit on the other in a kinda "this is all I've got" way! even the sidelight had blown in the non-working headlamp - at least I'm not that bad.

I see that a lot here, I often wonder if they've got a switch of some sort so they can choose whether to have the left-hand headlamp and the right-hand foglight on together or visa-versa, maybe on alternate nights.

I suspect most cars these days turn off the sidelight bulb when the headlamps are on but I can't be asked to look.

[Welly]

They're just betterer.....a bit more this, a bit less that you know....

They even have a pair with 24 carrot Gold tips (I'm not joking)

[steve_earwig]

Must be those ones, at that price

Actually, quite often when I look at the price of stuff here I check to see where the gold plating is.

[Doggy]

Unforgiveable!

Well no, not really. Whenever I have a dip beam failure, I swap it with the main beam bulb next time I stop. This is eminently possible with a 406, but I recognise some substitute vehicles may not be as sensibly equipped with H7 mains too.

I do a lot of driving in the dark and got thoroughly fed up with random failures like this, so for the last few years I have fitted a set of 4 at a time courtesy of Aldi's £3.99/pair deal that comes around each year about now. Despite these being cheap, they work every bit as well as the well known brand those theiving gits at Halfrauds sold my daughter last week at the special offer price of £20/pair.

[jasper5]

If you have a Halfords trade card a £10 bulb will cost about £3.

[steve_earwig]

that's one hell of a mark-up then!

[jasper5]

Trade price for headlight bulbs if you buy in 10s is around £1.20p....depending on where you buy them.

[rwb]

Just found out I have xenon HID headlights. Looks like they're about £35 each

Used to carry spare H7s, and have even run out and had to swap with the main beam -- in the dark by the light of a mobile phone screen
It went through a phase of eating them, but it cleared itself up.

[steve_earwig]

It's off topic time again folks - speaking of by the light of your mobile phone screen, I always thought a torch would be a good use for a mobile phone, more than all the other pointless stuff they do. Anyway the other day I pulled my mobile out of my pocket and the flash was permanently on, along with a tiny picture of a torch on the screen I must have pressed the right combination of buttons by accident. I didn't know they did that! I couldn't figure out how to turn it off so I had to kill the mobile and turn it back on again. And I've had this one for 4 years

As you were

Edit: I just looked it up, it works if I press & hold the bumhole (*) key. Neat.

Carry on

[rwb]

I have an app that does it.
Last time I wanted to use it the battery was flat

press & hold the bumhole (*) key

[teamster1975]

The biggest mistake I made was buying Halfrauds own bulbs, both headlights and tail. They last 5 minutes.
Swapped the whole lot to standard Bosch and touch wood not a single blow for over a year (mind you they'll probably all pop in unison now I've said that...)

[Bailes1992]

I haven't had a problem with Halfords lamps and they are cheap as chips on the trade card.

Another thing that angers me is the word "Bulb". They are not bulbs, blubs grow in the f'ing garden! They are LAMPS!

No excuse though Welly, the S40/V50/C30 is one of the easiest cars I've ever had the pleasure of changing the lights on! Just pull a pin out and out comes the cluster!
So why don't all manafacturers use this method?