Dev46

Thank you for the clarification Mike - I was under the (wrong belief) that if you have halogen bulbs, these are the high beams lights and therefore you would need Xenon (single bulb for the low beam) and not bi-xenon (are these dual bulbs that do both low and high beams or a clever use of shutters on just one bulb?), but I think you have clarified that is not necessarily the case. Thank you - this is very helpful. I could not get a clear answer searching this up but I take it that D3S are Xenon bulbs rather than bi-xenon bulbs (I have been advised I need D3S for my vehicle, which you have also pointed to in your post). Thank you for contributing to this post. best, Dev

Hey there, I asked about mine and was told I need DS3 bulbs, which I understand are Xenon bulbs. My vehicle has separate halogen bulbs for high beam, so I believe the D3S bulbs are Xenon (and not bi-xenon). Behind the headlamps are 35W ballasts, which I understand help with the efficient operations of these Xenon bulbs (other users might give a better explanation of what these are for, but I read about xenon ballasts from this link https://www.powerbulbs.com/blog/2016/10/what-does-a-hid-ballast-do). £1200 is a lot for a headlamp replacement - if the car value is around 6k or so, that's around 20%! If you have to go for a new headlamp, I would perhaps check on ebay and then work out if the cost + labour from your own mechanic amounts to the quoted £1200. Dev

@Dr_Mike_Oxgreen thank you for confirming this. The dealer has also confirmed my vehicle needs D3S bulbs. I am still pondering a DIY job on this if the bumper removal process is straightforward. I have a lot of tools so want to put them to good use. I am considering buying a workshop manual for this and other basic low risk DIY things I want to perform myself (all other bulb changes, air filter changes, cabin air filter changes, etc). I have been quoted £50 for such a manual (pdf form). Will probably give that a go.

Thank you for confirming this. I have chased up a Skoda dealer and asked them for more precise information rather than just Xenon bulbs. They have now specifically confirmed I need D3S bulbs. Thank you all for your help on this forum - this is very much appreciated.

@softscoop - thank you for confirming this. I have chased up a Skoda dealer and asked them more precise information rather than Xenon bulbs. They have now specifically confirmed I need D3S bulbs. Thank you all for your help on this forum - this is very much appreciated. Dev

@DrCorbyLee - When I search for suitable headlight bulbs by putting in my registration number on car parts websites, they are only coming up with Halogen and D1S bulbs (no D3S bulbs). I am wondering now if my skoda superb model was the pre-facelift, although my registration number was after yours which you mention is the facelift version. Somewhat still confused I have to admit...

Thank you @DrCorbyLee, this is very helpful indeed. It has been (and still is) a struggle to find out that information, so I am very glad to hear from someone who owns/owned a similar vehicle and went through that process. If you do have a link to where I can find very detailed specs about this facelift model, would be very grateful if you could share this. With the bulbs being that old, it is no wonder they are losing their brightness and it makes sense to get new D3S bulbs and see if I can replace them myself. If not a trip to a garage is warranted. Thank you again for sharing your knowledge on this - much appreciated.

Hi there, it appears that on this forum, instructions around how to replace bi-xenon headlight bulbs range from a simple DIY to needing a garage. Much of what I have read refers to a round rubber cap that needs removing to access the bulb compartment. What if there are no visible round rubber caps and instead you see a metal plate lining at the back of the lamps (which appear to be ballasts - I understand that these bi-xenon bulbs need to have). How would you go about replacing the xenon bulb and is that an easy DIY job that can be done just by lifting the hood and working on the lamp unit or is there more to this (e.g. needing to remove the front bumper to remove the whole lamp unit or as I have also seen in some cases, removing the front wheels and the fender to access the lamp unit from underneath the wheel). I attach a picture of what my headlight back unit under the hood looks like - scratching my head to understand how to open it to access the bulb unit. Any advice with this much appreciated. Thank you.

Headlight experts, I am happy to have stumbled onto this thread which provides some insights into bi-xenon headlights. I have a 2015 diesel skoda superb elegance mk2 170 estate and I was struggling to get to grips with what types of bulbs I have. My low beams were appearing to not project enough lights and I wanted to replace them. After entering my registration number on a parts website, it recommended H7 halogen bulbs and I bought two good quality long lasting osram bulbs and during the annual car service, I gave the garage the bulbs to replace what I thought were my low beam bulbs and they replaced them and gave me back the old bulbs which were also H7 halogen (they did not specify which bulb - low or high - that they replaced). I asked them how they replaced it given there was no rubber cap for access to the bulb (see picture below) but they just said it was a bit fiddly...I did not think any better and went home as all lights were working fine. However, I did not feel the low beam lights were any different from before, so I started searching and came to understand (helped by other skoda drivers on this forum) that I might have xenon or bi-xenon lights. Unfortunately, I was not sure which. To put my mind at ease, I went to a skoda dealer parts branch yesterday and I believe I spoke to someone who might not necessarily have been a technician. I initially gave them my registration number and after checking, they told me that I have halogen bulbs. I then asked him but why are there what seems like ballasts behind these lamps (please see pics attached). I asked him to come take a look under my the hood but he did not seem to want to. He went back to his office and came back saying I have halogen H7 for my high beam and xenon for my low beam. I thought I had single beam xenon bulbs but on trying to find out what type of xenon bulbs to look for, I ended up more confused as to whether I have xenon or bi-xenon bulbs. On reading the above thread, I now understand that it is likely that I have bi-xenon bulbs (i.e. when I put on my high beams, the high beam component of the bi-xenon bulb activate and the halogen bulb also lights up - please correct me if wrong?). I would have liked to check whether I have xenon or bi-xenon bulbs by removing the bulb and checking its product number and find out on the web but unfortunately, I am not sure how I would access the bulb compartment because of the metal plate fitting (I believe these are 35w ballasts - I used the product number on the metal plate to check this) at the back of the lamp as in the attached picture. I do not have a workshop manual so was not sure how I would access the bulb compartment - if anyone has any idea how to do this, please advise. Do I remove the screws on the ballast fitting or do I remove the screws on the black plastic casing that you can see on the picture to access the bulb compartment. I will do this with the engine switched off of course, but is there any risk of voltage shock from doing this myself or should I go to a garage? The skoda shop person was quoting £50 just to check what type of bulb I have and diagnose the dim light problem and mentioned something like £240 for two single xenon bulb + labour costs on top. This sounds exhorbitant for a bulb change (if the dim light problem is only down to bulb replacement). The car is almost 10 years old which is about the life span of xenon bulbs so I felt new bulbs are in order. I will change the tail lights and indicator bulbs as well myself. Any advice here will be much appreciated. I have also posted a pic of what my headlamps look like. Thank you in advance.

Hi, thank you. I will do that. Thanks you very much for your time offering some insights into this. I really appreciate this. Best.

Hi Gleebo, thank you for the detailed explanation. I have been pondering over this and I have to admit that although this makes sense, I still cannot get my head round what type of bulbs I have and what was replaced when I handed the garage a pair of H7 halogen bulbs (I did not offer xenon bulbs as I thought at the time my car uses halogen bulbs and only wanted to replace both low beam bulbs hoping putting newer longer lasting ones will be better and provide a bit more brightness than the old ones). Based on your explanation, I was not sure if you were referring to a third bulb in the front. Let me explain. I have the image of my headlamp below (driver's side obviously). Please look at the image in front of you and left means on your left side and right means on your right side of the image in front of you. I have signposted with writings as well. What I can't get my head round is the fact that the leftmost bulb on the outer end of the lamp switches on when I switch on my headlight or when it is on auto and automatically switches on if the sensor detects the absence of sufficient natural light). The rightside bulb of the headlamp does not switch on. It only switches on alongside the leftside bulb if I turn on my high beam switch). That raises so many questions in my head: (i) is there a third bulb in the headlamp assembly which uses a H7 halogen and which the garage replaced? (ii) I understand that bi-xenon lights operate both low and high beam in one single bulb so not sure the fact that the low and high beams alternate in different bulbs means they are not bi-xenon bulbs (iii) If they are xenon bulbs (not bi-xenon), I wonder if they both have to be HID bulbs or whether one of them is halogen (sorry for my ignorance on this matter), in which case the garage replaced the halogen one that I gave them (I did say replace the low beam bulbs). Xenon bulbs have different fitments so the fact that the halogen was successfully replaced (iv) if they are both halogen bulbs, then one of them was replaced by the garage (I suspect the low beam one as I also noticed the round dome inside glass on the left side was a little bit foggy after the halogen light bulbs were replaced (v) if these are actually all halogen lights, why are there ballasts behind the lamps (please see original picture when I first started the conversation). Could it be that the headlamps initially were bi-xenon lamps but were then replaced to normal halogen bulbs. I went into the dealer to try to get more but they sent me somewhere else that does service and parts in a different location, and I have yet to visit them. I really need to get to the bottom of this to try to understand what is going on with my lights. As I said, if it means buying replacing xenon bulbs, no problem but I need to first establish which bulbs to buy.

Thank you Gleebo. Sorry in advance for the long explanation but please bear with me so you understand what is going on here. The thumb wheel (pictured below only regulates the dashboard light brightness, it does not regulate the headlights). As per the picture below, there is only one thumbwheel so the missing one would have been for headlights adjustment. The manual says "Vehicles that are equipped with Bi-Xenon headlights do not have a manual headlight range adjustment control", so this is suggesting that these are bi-xenon headlights. I certainly did notice that at night in the dark, when I turn my lights on (this does not happen on auto-light), the headlights move up and down and side to side on their own, so this is confirming your thoughts on these being xenon headlights. Now herein lies my dilemma. I bought the car three years ago and I guess that the bulbs that came with the car were at least three years old. The bulbs have been working fine but I felt they were not bright enough at night and thought that since they were at least three years old, I should change them. I went onto a car parts website and when I put in my registration number, it recommended H7 halogen bulbs and I bought Osram Ultra Life H7 55w halogen bulbs. At the time I was not aware of the fact that my car might have different types of bulbs. I had a servicing recently and asked the garage if they could replace my low beam bulbs with the new Osram Ultra Life ones. They said if it is an easy 10 minutes job, fine and they would do it for free but if it involves a process where the whole headlamp needs removing, they would ring me and discuss a labour quote for this. I asked them to keep the old bulbs if they ended changing them. I picked up the car and they told me they had changed the bulbs. They gave me the old ones which were Osram Original H7 64210 halogen bulbs as well, so I did not think any better of them . The new low beam bulbs are working fine although as of yet, I have not yet driven on the road at night where there are no street lamps to fully appreciate if they are brighter. When I started to digest the messages on this board, I started doubting whether something was wrong with using halogen bulbs. I went back to the garage and mentioned the presence of ballasts and asked whether these should have been HID bulbs instead (I did not question to challenge them because I bought the bulbs without advice but rather was wondering if they would have picked up the mismatch bulbs when they saw the ballasts). They explained that the bulbs they removed were also halogen bulbs and the new bulbs I had provided them were better quality. They did not delve too much on the ballasts and though I asked whether these ballasts would interfere with the working of the halogen bulbs (especially if the bulbs are 55w and I think, although I am not sure, the ballasts in the car were 35w), and they assured me this was not a problem. I am clearly in doubt now about the whole thing. I understand halogen bulbs have a different fitting so would not have been able to fit into the slot if the old bulbs were hid, but the old bulbs were also halogen H7 55w. So in the end, I am confused myself as to what is going on. I read that halogen bulbs do not need ballasts so they must be hid bulbs and yet the new ones fitted into the slots just as the old halogen bulbs that were there. One thing I would also point out though is that in the recent past, I used to have an intermitten warning light about AFS bending lights not working (these came on and off if I am driving around a lot of bends) and my reading on this matter pointed to the direction of replacing the bulbs hence my purchasing new bulbs! My original post started on the basis of whether this was a DIY job - all videos point to a simple rubber cap that you remove and twist and change the bulb. However, I could not locate these rubber caps anywhere (see original picture in original post) hence writing to this forum to try to understand more about the car. I was chat messaging with a Skoda adviser and they don't have details of my vehicle in their system and could not tell me more. I'll probably have to go into one of the shops to try to find out more. But I am wary of having to spend more money if they tell me that something is not right with the headlights. If anyone could shed some light (no pun intended) on the above, especially using a halogen versus what should have been a hid bulb and how easy it is to do a DIY bulb fitting if in the end I have to purchase hid bulbs (which I don't mind). Grateful for any thoughts on this.

Thank you, so I take it that I can't put standard H7 halogen bulbs in there. I bought a pair of the Osram Ultra Life H7... Thank you for helping with this.

Hello, I believe these are halogen bulbs fitted in there (I am referring to the low beam bulbs here). Definitely can't locate any easily accessible rubber cap on this Elegance Skoda model.

apologies, the picture I showed is the right side of the car, i.e. the right side headlights

Fellow skoda experts, I am looking to replace my low-beam headlights on a Skoda Superb MK2 Estate Diesel (registration plate 2015). I have consulted the manual and videos and they all point to what appears to be a straightforward rubber cap that you can open and with the required twist you can remove the bulb unit and carry out an easy swap. However, when I looked under the bonnet, there is no visible rubber cover cap where it should be and instead what I see is as pictured in the attached (this is the left side of the car). I am scratching my head to try to understand what kind of headlight arrangement this is and whether this is a longer doable DIY job with standard tools or whether this needs a trip to the garage (thinking of how much they will charge for labour as I already have my two H7 bulbs ready). Grateful for any advice on this. Thank you, Dev skoda_headlight_pic.jfif