2ka4: HEADLIGHT SUCCESS: They're right, replace them both at once!

Just to chime in with what most similarly cursed folks are saying about the bizarre mortality rate of headlights that burn out on a4's. Sucker eats them like candy.

Mine is an 2000 a4/1.8t

Once a headlight burned out in my car I seemed to be replacing the opposing headlight every 3000 miles. I replace the left and the right burns out quickly. I replace that right one, and the left gacks quickly.

I followed the advice of folks here and I can say that when I REPLACED THEM BOTH AT THE SAME TIME (for reasons still unexplained) the car lasted over

15,000 miles before needing a replaced headlamp, and my lights are on *all* the time (full blast, I don't have the Canadian "running lights" option).

Hope this chime-in helps. Just do them both at once.

Thomas

PS. Because I'm clinically paranoid, I'm going to save up the living bulbs and try installing them both at a much later date. Stretching my imagination as to how that would help, but it's often good to rule out superstition. Perhaps having equally "hurt" living bulbs in both sides would equalize some analog circuitry, or something similar.

Reply to
Thomas G. Marshall
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I'm assuming you have the standard H7 bulbs and not the xenon D2S bulbs, correct?

Cheers,

Pete

Reply to
Pete

Odd. My experience is the opposite with my 98.5 A4 2.8Q: the driver headlight lasted until Feb/Mar 2003, and the passenger one just died last week. Those are the only two headlight bulbs I've had to replace, and I did replace both myself with OEM bulbs.

Reply to
xymergy

snipped-for-privacy@suds.com coughed up the following:

The mortality problem with a4 lights is only /very common/, not /ubiquitous/.

If you do a search through this and other audi newsgroups/forums, you'll see it come up as an issue, over and over again.

Reply to
Thomas G. Marshall

Pete coughed up the following:

They're H7's. Sorry for forgetting to mention that.

Reply to
Thomas G. Marshall

Right on. Both of my A42.8 Q's have gone through headlights like mad. The 97 was worse though and knock on wood, the 2000 seems to have stabalized recently. The funny thing is to read this over and over and have the dealership say (with a straight face) that it is "very uncommon". Right, just like cam cover leaks "never happen".

Reply to
MGC

MGC coughed up the following:

I am covered with the battle scars left from fights with the n*****ts at dealerships. It seems that they are all uniformly sleazy, regardless of the manufacturer.

I definitely hear you there.

Reply to
Thomas G. Marshall

MGC coughed up the following:

Actually, one of the things that I kept hearing (which does actually exist as a potential cause of early lite failure) is that there "must be" humidity in the light cavity requiring me to blow a hairdryer or heat gun into it.

Ignore that advice, drop the hairdryer, and replace BOTH filaments at once with new ones.

Reply to
Thomas G. Marshall

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