Strange I know, but my dealer is trying to put me off speccing my next car with Xenons 'cos (he says) they fail and cost

I used to work for a lighting company and HID lamps, which Xenons are, should last on average 100,000 hrs. When they say average that is given as the time it would take 50% of lamps to blow. At an average speed of 40mph you would have to do 4,000,000 miles at night for 1 of your lamps to blow. Compare that to the life of a standard household bulb which is about 1,000hrs and you can see that its unlikely they will ever need replacing (unless they get damaged that is)

Also I you accidentally left your lights on for 11.4 years while it was parked then it could also blow a lamp.

My old man has a garage and a few years back we had an A4 in with a Xenon problem. We got a new lamp at

There is more to Xenons than the cost of bulbs, you get improved visibility and that means better safety at night, they boost the appearance of the car () and they help when it comes to selling the car in the future as Xenons are becoming a "must have" on peoples lists of goodies.

As for the life of the xenon unit, they will last more than 5 times the life of a halogen lamp due to the lack of a filament (xenon = electical arc lighting).

Have a look at this site for more info:

All about the Xenon bulb of Philips

Ignore the dealer and opt for the xenons!!!!

As above;

There is more to the xenons than bulb life - light output (they are absolutely fantastic with excellent Z beam pattern and sharp cutoff) and resaleablility/value being the most important.

As to bulb life; I drive 90% of the time with headlights on (even daytime) and had an Omega with xenons for 3+ years and 80,000 miles with no bulb replacement but in my Fabia over 2.5 years and 50,000 miles was replacing 'standard' H7 bulbs every 9 months!!

IMHO get the Xenons - me thinks your dealer is trying to fob you off for some unexplained reason (normally they want you to buy as many extras as possible!!).

Maybe the dealer is trying to sell a stock car as the Xenons may well mean a factory build.

I think 100,000 miles is a sensible guess for xenon replacement under normal driving conditions.

You also get headlight washers (if on a vRS) and self levelling so it's worth the extra dosh.

Don't forget the MaxiDot!

Thanks chaps, confirms what I was thinking. Btw dstev2000, what is it about MaxiDot? Everybody raves about it, but it seems at first glance to be a relatively insignificant piece of kit. What's the reason everyone loves it so much?

i looked into xenons a while back, and found skoda offered a 10 year warranty with the xenon bulbs. which is good because 1 bulb is like

dealer is trying to stop you ordering a car with xenons as it has to put in a factory built request. Basically like mentioned above it has to sell so many cars in a month and probably already has a stock pile of cars out back that it needs to get rid of (probably will start telling you which colours you can have soon too).

Stand your ground thats what i did and you be pleased with the results.

Thanks chaps, confirms what I was thinking. Btw dstev2000, what is it about MaxiDot? Everybody raves about it, but it seems at first glance to be a relatively insignificant piece of kit. What's the reason everyone loves it so much?

Do a search on maxidot and you'll see what all the fuss is about.

Granted it isn't anything mind blowing but it massively improves the appearance of the dash and it is rapidly falling into the same "must have" category as xenons.

You'll be dissappointed if you don't spec it - trust me. I think a vast proportion of forum members with it would not do without it.

Thanks chaps, confirms what I was thinking. Btw dstev2000, what is it about MaxiDot? Everybody raves about it, but it seems at first glance to be a relatively insignificant piece of kit. What's the reason everyone loves it so much?

Also it lets you access a lot of the comfort features rather than going to the dealer or getting someone to use Vag-Com!

dealer is trying to stop you ordering a car with xenons as it has to put in a factory built request. Basically like mentioned above it has to sell so many cars in a month and probably already has a stock pile of cars out back that it needs to get rid of (probably will start telling you which colours you can have soon too).

Stand your ground thats what i did and you be pleased with the results.

Strange you should say that about colours! I was in the market for a new car, I visited my local Skoda dealer who told me I could only have 2 colours if I wanted a deal. Needless to say I bought from another dealer where I was offered any colour I wanted and saved an extra

Thanks chaps, confirms what I was thinking. Btw dstev2000, what is it about MaxiDot? Everybody raves about it, but it seems at first glance to be a relatively insignificant piece of kit. What's the reason everyone loves it so much?

Just a trip computer if you only use the basics.

But I am very glad I got it, if only as an anorak!

Loads of other bits if you read hte forums and get into the technical codes.

Strange you should say that about colours! I was in the market for a new car, I visited my local Skoda dealer who told me I could only have 2 colours if I wanted a deal. Needless to say I bought from another dealer where I was offered any colour I wanted and saved an extra

I agree with the posts above that the dealer is probably trying to pull a fast one and sell his stock car to you. Try another dealer or use Drive the Deal (or similar) to find the car YOU want at the price YOU want to pay.

As for Maxi-Dot, when I bought my 1 year old car, the dealer hadn't even mentioned it had it in the blurb but it is so much better having it. Definately recommend getting it.

The carss were not even his, they were other dealers who couldnt shift them including one thats been sat in the port up north for 2 months as the person who originally ordered it got fed and waiting and told them to stick it.