Headlight failed

EdGasketTheSecond

That headlight is costing way more than I paid for my Mercedes (complete car) and have been running for over five years with no significant bills.

JP1978

Did you buy the car new? Thought that Vauxhalls had a lifetime warranty (100,000 miles) to the first owner? Was that started when you purchased (if you were the first owner)

EssexExile

Robisere wrote: »

Not criticism or sarcasm, but why then have you continued to buy Vauxhalls since 1984, if you are so unhappy with the dealers and manufacturer? I had two successive Vauxhalls ('95 and '98) that gave me grief, never had another.

The first two cars were great, the rest were supplied by my employer & they were great too. It's the dealers that were useless & the manufacturer did little to help.

m0bov

How did you pay for the car? Is it on finance?

You'd need to pursue the SUPPLYING dealer under your SOGA, contact them and claiming under that, NOT the warranty.

jonnyd281

Are you sure something hasn't hit the headlight, like a stone or something?

[Deleted User]

One of the things to do before buying a car is to see if the headlight bulb can be changed in under 5 minutes with no special tools. If not walk away.

£849 for a headlight unit that you have to change when the bulbs go? lolwut!

facade

It doesn't look .like the bulb has gone.

AFAIK, vauxhalls of that age have a "proper" bulb (that you can change) behind that lens, and that ring is supposed to oscillate frantically when you go along, making the beams wave around like a searchlight looking for a German raider in 1939. (There was a software "fix" that made it slightly better...)
There will be a servo motor of some sort attached to that ring, and that is what is broken.

I'd be looking to replace the headlamps with 2 bits of plywood with 7" round headlamps and a couple of indicators screwed to themt rather than pay £800 for a headlamp

The newer ones will be LED and even more expensive.

AdrianC

"AFL" lights are Opel's "Adaptive Forward Lights", HIDs, so no normal filament bulb. What's failed is not the HID discharge unit itself, the "bulb", but the electro-mechanical unit that moves the beam around in response to areas the car perceives light is/isn't needed. They respond to a variety of inputs, including speed/weather/steering/indicators.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCHG9148XcY

So, no, there's no choice but to replace the entire unit. Whether you replace with new or used is your choice, of course. If you can get a goodwill payment from Vauxhall, then great - but the car is out of warranty, so it's not guaranteed by any stretch. Use their goodwill (or lack of) to guide your future purchasing decisions.

I_am_spartacus

We are all the manufacturers cash cows.
All the modern improvements on items that can’t be repaired and have to have the whole unit replaced rather than the failed bit.
When I were a lad my parents had a “proper” TV, when it went wrong and a thump on the top of it didn’t work, you got a “man” in, who took the back off replaced a valve or two and it was as good as new again (till next time) Now the whole TV thrown out and a new one brought.
Also the printers where the replacement ink cost more per ml than petrol, and that's saying something!
Morning rant over, thank you I feel better for that.

AdrianC

I_am_spartacus wrote: »

When I were a lad my parents had a !!!8220;proper!!!8221; TV, when it went wrong and a thump on the top of it didn!!!8217;t work, you got a !!!8220;man!!!8221; in, who took the back off replaced a valve or two and it was as good as new again (till next time) Now the whole TV thrown out and a new one brought.

But the big difference there is that [STRIKE]bringing[/STRIKE] buying the new one is about the same price as an hour or two of skilled labour with overheads. It's not just repairmen that modern TVs have put out of business - it's Radio Rentals, too. New TVs are ridiculously cheap compared to what they used to be, some of which is due to technical advances (tubes are very hard to manufacture compared to even huge flat screens), and some of which is due to not designing-in repairability. Again, there's a vicious circle there - look at how simple an old TV was, with mechanical tuning for the handful of channels, and how much space there was internally.

And if you think I'm exaggerating...
Spring 1980 Argos catalogue... page 199. Pye 14" colour portable TV, £225. Don't even ask about a video recorder... That's not Joe Public-level consumer technology for a few more years. Even 1980 is a generation after TVs with valves in - they died out with the transistor revolution in the 1960s.

After inflation, that's nearly £1,100 in today's money. Sod the inflation - even if you'd put it under your mattress, £225 buys you a Toshiba 32" Smart HD TV. You don't even need a video - just plug a cheap USB drive into it. Or watch the prog later online. Don't need smart? Happy to plug a £30 Roku into a USB port for that? £150 will see you walk out of the supermarket with a 32" TV under your arm.

It's the same with this kind of headlight. There's simply no comparison with old H4 headlights, dip or main only. This is technology that's been around for a decade - but could not have been dreamed of a decade before that. And now a single new headlight is more expensive than some of the cars with them fitted...