Flickering xenons

[Max Headroom]

Heheh - excellent post Richard

thart made oi laaf loik a good 'un   

[Norfolk Jim]

blass me boi. They still do thart in sum parts of narfulk

[mikeloadsasaabs]

Back on topic, the RH lamp has been flickering more and more often, so given that I can't find the 2nd original bulb (I have already put the first back in the LH side as part of the fault diagnosis) so I went to the local motor factors this morning to get a new one - €149  , but following shocked expression I was offered it for €130. Have to wait and see if it cures the problem.

If it does, I'm thinking that the "genuine" bulbs I bought might have been counterfeit, hence only lasting 6 months against the 8 years of the originals. I did notice that the metal base, which is in two crimped parts, is loose on one of them. We'll wait and see.

[Norfolk Jim]

Good luck Mike

[mikeloadsasaabs]

Since my last post, I found this with a bit of googling:

http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=659944

It's not credited, just a post on another forum, but claims that 80% of aftermarket Philips bulbs are fakes. Interestingly it includes this link to some pictures of how to spot fake bulbs:

http://www.hidbulbzrus.com/vs.pdf

The ones I bought as genuine have all the hallmarks of the fakes, except that when I pull the sticker off the bottom I get the word "VOID" (you have to look at the pictures to see what I mean). I can also see that the capsule that produces the light has got a lot of condensed brown gunge on the one I've just taken out, which probably results from the flaring.

We'll see how it goes.

[Audax]

There's so much fake stuff out there now it's hard to find the genuine stuff at times  It's why I won't buy the increased output halogen bulbs on ebay (and why many people say they make no difference!).

[Norfolk Jim]

I bought some of ebay a couple of years ago and they were around £60 for pair but were no better than ones I took out. Kept them in for about a month and got fed up so went to dealers who actually had reduced their prices and paid around £85 for the pair which they fitted. I cannot say in words how much better the dealer supplied ones were! They were on my Aero estate and stayed in it. My 2.2TiD has them and fairly soon after buying it I did the same and got them from dealers. Amazing the difference and dealer said the ones that came out looked originals for just under 6 years old. I still kept them as spares and have just looked and yep - peel sticker back and it says void so seems they may be the originals from new!

Good find Mike - we'll all now be staring at our bulbs!

As an aside I found this to be true with wifes Volvo halogen bulbs. One went so replaced with pair off ebay that were supposed to be 90% jobbies. No better so went to dealers and bought them. Much brighter and have lasted 9 months already which is good for car which has them on all the while

[Steve440]

I know somebody who works for a government department that looks into these fake goods.

He was telling me something that I found interesting.

Apparently a lot of ''fake'' goods are produced in the same factories as the non fake products but without the quality control. He was telling me that there are some Sony laptop's that were produced a few years ago and though they looked exactly the same as the genuine ones and they were produced in the same Chinese factory but they had cheaper components and had none of the usual quality control that Sony instigate. They were even delivered in Sony boxes. When Sony found out what had happened they stopped using that manufacturer.

I had presumed these fake goods were made in some back street workshop but in truth it is the huge capacity to produce that is problem.  The owners of these factories around the world don't want to see there workers sitting idle. One day they are making for one customer and then the following day for another, the economic downturn has meant they have even more spare capacity.

Steve