Xenon Headlight Bulb Replacement

[Dndo]

So my driver side headlight seems to be gone, it seems to flash then just goes out I imagine this is a common thing on them.

My question is....Is there anything hard/special about replacing the Xenon bulb? Or is it relatively straight forward?

I haven't replaced a Xenon bulb before so wanted to check with some people that have there has to be someone here

[chelspeed]

Assuming you mean HID gas discharge lights rather than Halfords special high power conventional bulbs allegedly filled with xenon.

I have fitted aftermarket HID and the bulbs fitted jut like normal blubs, take a cover off the back of the light, unplug the wires, remove a metal clip and pull out the blub. But that's not surprising as they were designed to replace conventional blubs. Can't see why OEM HID blubs should be different but can't confirm as not changed one.

The "blub" is just a gap between two electrodes filled with gas (the xenon bit). So no filament to "go" as with a conventional blub. I guess the gas could leak out which would stop it working, not sure if it would flash then or not.

HID xenon lights consist of a ballast which converts the 12V into a voltage high enough to ionise the gas and establish the arc which generates the light (think I've heard 50,000V) then drops to a lower voltage (but still many 000's of volts) to sustain the arc. To me your fault sounds equally likely, if not more likely, that the ballast has stopped working, the arc is established (the bulb flashes) but then isn't maintained.

When someone tells you how easy it is or otherwise on this car I'd take out both bulbs and swap them side to side. If the fault moves to the other side it's a blub issue. If the fault stays on the same side then it's a ballast issue.

The ballast is a thin square box about 75mm square and 25mm thick somewhere close to the headlight (within 6" or so), It will have one small plug with thin wires from the loom and one big wire going into the headlight. Blubs are about £20 a pop. Ballasts are about £40 a pop for aftermarket but no idea what VW charge.

[charliegilmanuk]

Nothing complicated about replacing it, bulb type should be D1S assuming that you have OEM bi-xenons. Recently retrofitted mine brand new (no bulbs included) so I went with D1S 6000k temperature, not sure what the OEM temperature is but it's probably worth replacing both bulbs if you go down this route, as said above, mine were around £45 for some genuine Philips D1S.

However, I would strongly suggest to test the ballast before you replace bulbs as this sounds the likely cause from your description. Unfortunately to replace this you will have to remove the headlight completely, the ballast is as described above (see picture: http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NTA4WDY5MQ==/ ... Y9/$_1.JPG" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) and is secured to the headlight with two easily removable screws. The only method I'm aware of testing it is to simply swap it into your other headlight and see whether that works, if it's the ballast at fault then a rough cost would be £50, think I picked mine up for £48 each, they should be branded as Valeo and is universal as far as I know across VW/Audi/Skoda/Seat so they're pretty common.

Guide to headlight removal FYI: http://www.sciroccocentral.co.uk/roccop ... ht_Removal" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;