What have you done to your car today?

Surely that's an indicator that your ballasts are giving too much power to the bulbs and reducing their lifespan?

I know Amazon's service is great, but I wouldn't want to be swapping out bulbs every year, as that's not really solving the main issue :p
 
mrk said:
Surely that's an indicator that your ballasts are giving too much power to the bulbs and reducing their lifespan?
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I'm thinking the opposite. As xenon bulbs get older, they change in colour etc. I think they probably have a higher resistance and put more strain on the ballast the older the bulb gets, which could be why they are fine when they are brand new, but as they age, the ballast can't up the power supply needed to keep them going.

mrk said:
I know Amazon's service is great, but I wouldn't want to be swapping out bulbs every year, as that's not really solving the main issue :p
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I would be thinking the same thing I had to pay for them :p and with all this practice I can now do a xenon bulb swap in less than 5 minutes on an E46 M3. :D

Firestar_3x said:
Bad ballast by the sounds of things, sure all the bulbs you have been trying are genuine?
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Yeah, i'm confident they are 100% genuine. They have been bought from Amazon direct and Powerbulbs. The one thing I did notice is that the design of them has changed quite significantly (particularly the base). The one that Osram sent me was a newer design to the ones I had had previously. And then the one from Amazon in April 2016 was the same design as the one from Osram.

Anyway, i've just remembered that I think the ballasts in the R53 Mini are the same as the E46, so I was going to nip out and swap them over and see what happens.
 
Ok, had a couple of problems:

A) For some reason I thought that both headlights ran off a single ballast to the right of the airbox - unfortunately, this is only for the passenger side one, and I currently have a problem with the drivers side headlight flickering.

B) The drivers side ballast is buried under the headlight and I really can't be bothered to take it out right now.

C) The flickering seems to have stopped?

With the above in mind (there being two ballasts not one), I now think it less likely that it is the ballasts as the exact same issue is happening on both sides which would mean that both ballasts would have the same, quite uncommon, issue. I think it is the Osram bulbs now. Ah well!
 
I can't imagine it being the bulbs ageing after a year. My car came with the original Xenons still working fine, but of course light output was a little dimmer/paler than it should be, so replaced with Phillips Extreme Vision ones and 30k miles later, still as bright as I remember them being when new. The same with the E46 before that, 60k miles on the same pair of Osram Xenarc that I got new shortly after buying that car.

I tend to leave the Xenons on during the day as well.

Xenon bulbs have an MTBF of years of constant use, not months to a year remember!

Your car hasn't been coded to use the bi-xenon as flasher has it? Perhaps that might explain why they are going bad after a year if so. I'd also run a Carly diagnostic/coding read to see if the headlight voltage monitoring has been disabled by a previous owner.
 
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TS7 said:
On the subject of xenons - is flashing (not unbuttoning your trench) bad for the bulbs?
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Depends on the car. Newer cars have both main beam and dipped beam as Xenons, and flashing with those is fine as they're designed for that purpose.

Older cars with a single bi-xenon dipped beam and halogen main beam (the xenon also opens a window that increases its brightness to aid the main beam when main beams are activated) can be coded to flash the xenon dipped beam when you flash someone instead of the halogen. Doing so on those cars is bad for the xenon bulb as you can imagine.

[TW]Fox;30463597 said:
Surely you just leave them in Auto?
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Yes, but these days I just flick it to "on" if it's a particularly overcast day or something. Still daylight, but just grim out. Better to be safe, better to be seen.
 
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mrk said:
I can't imagine it being the bulbs ageing after a year. My car came with the original Xenons still working fine, but of course light output was a little dimmer/paler than it should be, so replaced with Phillips Extreme Vision ones and 30k miles later, still as bright as I remember them being when new. The same with the E46 before that, 60k miles on the same pair of Osram Xenarc that I got new shortly after buying that car.
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Yeah mine were still on the factory original Xenarc ones when I first had cause to change them. I wanted to replace like for like that's why I went with the same bulbs. I wish I'd have gone with the Philips ones tbh. Every Philips bulb i've ever had has been better than the equivalent Osram.

I've just looked back at the receipts and can see that I replaced the passenger side one in April 2016, and that one is still ok. So I guess I must have replaced the drivers side one prior to that - possibly August 2015? To tell you the truth, i've lost track of it all!

mrk said:
I tend to leave the Xenons on during the day as well.
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Yep, mine are on all the time too.

mrk said:
Your car hasn't been coded to use the bi-xenon as flasher has it? Perhaps that might explain why they are going bad after a year if so. I'd also run a Carly diagnostic/coding read to see if the headlight voltage monitoring has been disabled by a previous owner.
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They have been coded yeah, but this doesn't affect the bulbs as it's just the shutter that opens (and the lights are on all the time anyway so it doesn't have to ignite them for that 1/2 second. The passenger ballast I just took out looked brand new and I find it hard to believe that both ballasts have the same obscure problem, which is fixed with a new bulb.
 
Ahh I see now, so you didn't replace the bulbs in pairs, just a single bulb each time?

That may well explain the issue. I was once told to always replace xenon bulbs in pairs on some "picky" cars.
 
mrk said:
Depends on the car. Newer cars have both main beam and dipped beam as Xenons, and flashing with those is fine as they're designed for that purpose.

Older cars with a single bi-xenon dipped beam and halogen main beam (the xenon also opens a window that increases its brightness to aid the main beam when main beams are activated) can be coded to flash the xenon dipped beam when you flash someone instead of the halogen. Doing so on those cars is bad for the xenon bulb as you can imagine.
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I don't think it is for this reason. The earlier E46's originally came with dipped "single" xenon lights only, which needed the inner lights as halogens for full beams.

Later on in it's life, they upgraded it to Bi-Xenon lights, which would normally mean the inner halogens would become redundant, but since there were no point taking the halogens out, they kept them to boost to the bi-xenons.

The newer BMW's have the xenon flash function and use D1S bulbs - which is basically a D2S bulb with a miniaturised and integrated igniter stuck on the end on the end, instead of a separate igniter module necessary with a D1S bulb. It *may* (or may not) be the case that this igniter is more suited to being able to ignite the xenon bulbs quickly and not be as susceptible to failure, but the actual bulb design is actually pretty much the same.
 
mrk said:
Ahh I see now, so you didn't replace the bulbs in pairs, just a single bulb each time?

That may well explain the issue. I was once told to always replace xenon bulbs in pairs on some "picky" cars.
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Yeah only replaced the one that was flickering, which would be the drivers side, then a few months later, the passenger side, then the drivers side again etc etc. Like I said, I've replaced four xenon bulbs so far IIRC. Since it is a very intermittent problem, unless I'm going to pay £200 for a pair of new ballasts, then £60 for a pair of new bulbs - then wait a year to see if it has in fact fixed it, then I'm almost better off just getting free replacements from Amazon every 12 months or so.

I know that the passenger one was replaced in Apr 2016 and that one seems to be absolutely fine for now, so we'll wait and see. If it does start flickering, I'll put on of the Mini ballasts on it to see if that fixes it.
 
Discovered my tow hook cover on my front bumper is missing. Annoying me a lot more than it probably should do, especially since I'm not sure whether it just happened to fall off or whether some **** stole it.

Ah well, replacement ordered.
 
Rear discs, pads and calipers change. Both handbrake cables changed. Brake fluid changed. Oil and oil filter changed.

My original calipers were alright it was the cable which wasn't. I replaced them anyway in case they did end up seizing up. Will sell my old calipers to recoup some money.

£120 I got charged. Is that cheap or the going rate? Wasn't sure as it was a friend of a friend who did it.
 
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