xenon headlight issue

[soncjet]

forgive my ignorance... but i'm used to going to the autoparts store and buying a $7 bulb and throwing it in when one burns out... i dont think that will be the case with this beast

couple days ago...
notice that the pass side low beam appears more pinkiish/orangeish than the drivers side. never like this before

yesterday or sunday?...
same light once turning it on, stays on for 10 seconds, flickers madly,and turns off.

get a "lightbulb malfunction" icon in the dash... as well as a 2nd message referring to, i think it said, the headlight levelers (when i looked in the manual)


today...
light still turns on, flickers, and turns off all w/in 20 seconds.

only the bad bulb icon... nothing else about levelers.



any thoughts, comments... what should i be looking at? and how much lube will this require?

it's an 01, a8l, with the xenon headlight option (convience package i think?) not aftermarket.

thanks.
Brian

[boravr6]

If its an 01 with the original bulbs... might be just the bulb croaking on ya. Im new to xenon so not really sure how to check if its burnt / dead. Unfortunately though.... it wont be a 7$ fix ... Xenon bulbs are usually more like 100$ a piece.

[Silverstreak98]

Whatever you do don't buy the Xenon bulb at the dealership they really jack up the price.

I'm not sure if your A8 uses D1S or D2S bulbs, so first you need to figure that out. Check Ebay and sites like HIDconcept.com for the bulbs, both have good prices. You are going to want either a genuine Philips or Osram bulb with a color temperature of 4300k.

Also since the other bulb is old it will have "color shifted" (after about 400 hours of use HID bulbs color shift to be more white/blue), therefore your new bulb wont match color wise. If you don't care about that just buy one, but if you want them to match pick up two.

[soncjet]

good stuff to know. i will check out those places.

but if the bulb still lights when i first turn on the lights... would it be the bulb though? that is the odd thing. isn't there a of "control box" (or ballast) of some sort for these type of lights?

I'd hate to go drop $100+ on a bulb, only to find out that i needed a new controlling unit.

[DirtyJerzey]

I'm pretty sure its the igniter, not the bulb, happened to both s4's I had(00' and my 01') its a common problem, research ignitor and you'll see its very common, if your bulb was worked it wouldn't come on at all, and from seeing that you have a D2 a8 that's the exactly year range of this faulty igniter issue...