I have had a night mare with my lights, recently the main beam went in the factory fitted xenon.( 2002 octavia L&K estate) i replaced it and the same one on the other side with osram cool blue, they looked graet with no problems but two days later the drivers side xenon has stopped working, (not even a flicker)i have checked all connections, the fuse is ok and the lamp dosnt look broken( although how do you tell! can anyone suggest a fault finding solution as my knowledge of the xenon bits is limited and before i start swapping bits from one side to the other to find the broken part i would like to make sure that i wont end up with a larger bill than is looming already. thank you

I cant be of any help am afraid (sorry), but have just had my nearside xenon/ HID bulb go too(octavia L&K 2001), and would like any info anyone has to offer.

cheers

PS i did get told in another thread to check the ballast box (dont know if that makes any sense?)

thanks 150hp, firstly ive swapped the HID bulbs over, and the drivers side one worked in the passengers side. so i then swapped the ballast box ( three wires in and two large ones out that connects to the lamp) this also worked on the passenger side! i have swapped over the control unit on the back of the unit ( made in france) i think this controls the auto dip feature and that made no difference. i sprayed wd40 in all the connectors and put them back together.........and it now works. moral of the story, simple things first, if a problem occurs look at the connectors.....fingers crossed. Thanks

The Xenon bulb doesn't have a filament just two rods between which an arc will be struck. This arc heats the gas and gives the discharge light you will see.

On higher power light arc lamps (eg cinema projectors etc) you will get a black coating eventually on the inside of the glass, which means it is time to rotate the bulb and when on both sides about time to replace.

With the big bulbs you replace after so many hours because they have a nasty habit of exploding when they go. Unfortunately I can't think of any easy way to identify if a bulb is dead as it is usually a pressure leak, electrode reaction, or gas reaction which causes the death of these bulbs.

Personally I would find the expected life span, then depending on funds replace the bulbs or be aware that you will have to at some point around this time.