V50 General : Xenon headlight bulb

[Clan]

Originally Posted by kopite

Good job I took it out to check first, they're halogen!
osram 64210l long life halogen lamps. Anyone else's V50 have these?

The volvo H7 bulbs are osram long life you should get about 18 months out of them being used as day running lights , Standard H7 bulbs may only last a couple of months .

[C30 Driver]

Or look at your light switch, if yoou have xenon lights you will not have the headlight adjuster for adjusting you lights up and down. This goes for all makes of cars.

[PeteB1]

Originally Posted by kopite

Good job I took it out to check first, they're halogen!
osram 64210l long life halogen lamps. Anyone else's V50 have these?

In that case, to get a brighter, whiter light, you want Osram 'Nightbreakers' or Philips 'Xtreme' bulbs. These are probably about the best that filament bulb technology has and are way above the long life ones you have now (but probably not as good as HID's).

The downside is that the lifetime is shorter - 18 months to 2 yrs for me in my previous Vectra C but obviously it depends on the amount of night driving you do. Also, DRL, if in use, will affect the lifetime too.

[tayandre]

I upgraded my dipped beam bulbs to Philipps Power Extreme, one lasted about 14 months, strangely the other is still working fine now at 18 months old.

So I've now got one supposedly bright bulb and one regular halogen £5 non branded bulb from the car spares shop. The difference? - very little. I'll try and see if it shows up in a pic and post it. The Philipps bulb is a bit whiter and brighter than the cheapo bulb but the beam goes no further. It lights up the area the beam covers a little better but the coverage is still the same - poor.

For me that's the flaw with these headlights, it's not the brightness it's the lack of spread. The bulb isn't the problem, it's the beam pattern that's pants. Will need to try having a tinker with the height adjustment on the lamp to see if that improves things.

[PeteB1]

Originally Posted by tayandre

I upgraded my dipped beam bulbs to Philipps Power Extreme, one lasted about 14 months, strangely the other is still working fine now at 18 months old.

So I've now got one supposedly bright bulb and one regular halogen £5 non branded bulb from the car spares shop. The difference? - very little. I'll try and see if it shows up in a pic and post it. The Philipps bulb is a bit whiter and brighter than the cheapo bulb but the beam goes no further. It lights up the area the beam covers a little better but the coverage is still the same - poor.

For me that's the flaw with these headlights, it's not the brightness it's the lack of spread. The bulb isn't the problem, it's the beam pattern that's pants. Will need to try having a tinker with the height adjustment on the lamp to see if that improves things.

It seems a common misconception (not necessarily with you as you've made the point about beam pattern) that a brighter bulb will give a bigger spread as the beam pattern is determined more by the reflector design that the bulb brightness. A brighter bulb will give better illumination within the beam spread though. Definitely worth you getting the alignment checked and getting the lights set to the highest point within the acceptable range. Then if you need to, you can manually lower them a point or so with the in-car adjuster, say when in built up areas or on well lit busy roads.

I agree, some current designs of headlamp, which seem more for style than efficiency can be very poor on dip. My current one isn't too bad.

[C30 Driver]

What you need is a hid kit.

Just happens that I'm selling one in the for sale bit.




Shameful!

[kopite]

I clearly didn't know the difference between xenon and halogen.
I'm actually glad they're halogen, atleast something on the car is nice and cheap to repair!