Car headlamp bulb

At £10 for a H7 they ought to wear a mask at the checkout

Reply to
ARW
Loading thread data ...

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)" writes

Bought a digital car radio recently Halfords about £20 cheaper than anyone else on line.

Reply to
bert

You're only bloody right! However, just today (Sunday PM actually), I found a local supplier who also offered the "standard" H7 at trade price (£4.99) and a 501 sidelight for 50p along with a standard rear/brake lamp (5/21W offset pin) to replace the used up spare which came to a total spend of around £7.50 all in.

It's a far cry from the complete spares bulb kit you could buy in LidAldi for about a fiver just 3 or 4 years ago (but they're now almost 15 quid in later listings). There does seem to have been a massive jump in price during the last 5 years.

I'd have bought a pair of H7s and 501s except for my conviction that we definitely bought such a bulb kit a few years back (which, afair, was only raided for a rear/brake lamp bulb) that I'm convinced has merely been stored away in a place so safe that I've not _yet_ been able to retrieve it.

This was for a Y reg (2001) Vauxhall Astra 1.6 Automatic 5 door hatchback. The owner's guide makes absolutely no mention whatsoever of lamp changing... not a dickybird!! However, this is one of those models where it's relatively simple to change all the headlamp bulbs and ditto for the rear light clusters.

I mentioned my surprise at the use of seperate main and dip bulbs over the twin filament H4 (which can be bought for the same price as a single H7 btw) to the shopkeeper and he suggested it was likely down to the temperature limitations of the plastic headlamp reflectors which seemed to me to be the most likely valid explanation.

I was also surprised to find that switching to main beam _doesn't_ cut off the dip lamp when I was checking my lamp replacement efforts. The use of seperate lamps in seperate reflectors eliminates the need to avoid protracted running of both filaments simultaneously in the case of the H4 bulb, plus it saves needless thermal cycling of the dip beam. I guess it's been an effective strategy since this is the first time, afaicr, that I've had to replace an H7 lamp during the past 10 years we've owned the car.

Reply to
Johny B Good

8<

You could buy a car specific spare kit from Vauxhall for less than Halfords charge for a bulb, in fact it was less than vauxhall charged for a single bulb. I bought some of the £2.99 H7s from lidl and I don't think they lasted long, certainly not as long as the originals.

Reply to
dennis

There can also be a considerable difference in light output with headlamp halogens between makers of seemingly identical bulbs.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.