'Flickering' Xenons

[bigbadgoggs]

Finally took the plunge and swapped my old 56 plate Superb 2.0 140 TDI Elegance for a shiny new Superb Estate 2.0 140 Elegance. Great deal from Arnold Clark in Edinburgh - the car is 6 months old with just 24 miles on the clock. It's been sitting in a compound since it was registered. I got the colour and all the options I wanted (auto rear view mirror, heated windscreen, rear privacy glass and spare wheel). Also got a massive discount on new price

The car is fantastic - I love it much quieter than my old one and I love the Columbus unit, especially the phone functions.

Just one niggle I have noticed - when driving at night the xenon headlamps seem to 'flicker' when driving over rough ground or when on uneven road surfaces - it's almost as if the headlamps are not fitted tightly enough. I don't recall my old car having this problem.

Has anyone had a similar issue?

Thanks

[Sw1]

Hi,

Congrats on the superb, it sounds like you have a lose bulb or something, I've had my superb elegance for 15 months and never had the issue you describe.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

[Gizmo]

Sorry but a car that is in demand and has a 6+ month waiting list sat in a compound for 6 months? :no:

It's probably just me, but I smell a rat and would get the car checked over for repaired damage (headlight mounts broken or loose).etc, I hope I am wrong.

Arnold Clark do not exactly have an exemplary past record.

[bigbadgoggs]

Sorry but a car that is in demand and has a 6+ month waiting list sat in a compound for 6 months? :no:

It's probably just me, but I smell a rat and would get the car checked over for repaired damage (headlight mounts broken or loose).etc, I hope I am wrong.

Arnold Clark do not exactly have an exemplary past record.

Thanks for your reply - Yep, I thought it strange too and the first question I asked was - where had the car been for 6 months?

Salesman told me they'd bought a batch of 9 Superb estates and registered them all at the time. Some went out as demonstrators and some as AC hire cars - two were held back in stock (the one I bought and another with a panoramic sunroof) - I had the choice of both of these cars. Both were registered on the same date and both had less than 30 miles on the clock. They were selling these two cars plus another 4 or 5 (exactly same spec but with between 3k and 8k miles on them) throughout their Skoda dealerships. All had very similar reg nos to mine so that gave me some comfort that his story was at least plausible.

I also saw internal AC paperwork requesting transfer of the car from their holding compound to the dealership dated April this year and the car had been on their forecourt since.

I know that there is a 6 month lead time on delivery of these cars new, but when I was looking I checked Skoda's used car search website and there are loads of nearly new examples sitting on Skoda dealers forecourts around the country - many of the ones I looked at at the time are still there 5 weeks later.

I used the above logic to convince myself that the car was genuine but I will probably take your advice and get the car checked out by our local garage (if only to eliminate the nagging doubt!). I checked the car over thoroughly and couldn't see any obvious signs of damage repair - from your experience are there any tell tale signs to look for. Do you know if they would be able to replace or reset the speedo for example without it being recorded on the DVLA V5c doc?

Thanks

[hell666]

This 'flicker' is quiete common in Cars fitted with Xenons and has been widely experienced by many such Owners including me.

It is basically due to the Self/Auto Levelling System of the Xenons which tries to adjust itself by going up/down to compensate for the quick changes in road gradient, which inturn gives the illusion of a 'flicker'.

Do you see the flicker intermittently when the road is smooth or is it that the flicker is only on rough roads? If it is only uneven and rough patches of the road, it is most likely the Xenons in action.

[bigbadgoggs]

This 'flicker' is quiete common in Cars fitted with Xenons and has been widely experienced by many such Owners including me.

It is basically due to the Self/Auto Levelling System of the Xenons which tries to adjust itself by going up/down to compensate for the quick changes in road gradient, which inturn gives the illusion of a 'flicker'.

Do you see the flicker intermittently when the road is smooth or is it that the flicker is only on rough roads? If it is only uneven and rough patches of the road, it is most likely the Xenons in action.

Thanks - it's definitely only when going over a bump in the road or an uneven stretch of road - the auto levelling sounds like a probable culprit but my last (MK1) superb saloon's xenons didn't have this issue: maybe the system on the Superb MK11 is more sensitive.

Edited 19 August, 2012 by bigbadgoggs

[mannyo]

The superb MK2 uses a far more sophisticated level system which also incorporates AFS. AFS dynamically alters the beam pattern based on speed and weather conditions.

[Albervin]

I noticed this when I hit some rough bitumen recently. I was was initially concerned it was a loose bulb/bracket but everything has been fine for the 4 months I have owned the car (ex-demo). On the return trip I again hit the rough road and same result so I queried the dealer. He said it was the auto levelling taking over and that seems to make sense.