Occasional warning about dipped headlights

[Fejinwales]

Anything from four months to even as long as a year, occasionally when I start the car, I'll hear a beep, the word 'SERVICE' will appear on the dash and 'check dipped headlights' will show for a brief moment in the console display.

When this happens (whilst parked) I have to turn on the dipped headlights, then turn them off and turn off the ignition. When I turn it back on again the warning disappears, if I do the order wrong I may have to do it twice.

The problem is that it can even do this whilst driving. There have been two occasions when this has happened, both times when I turned my lights on whilst driving. The first time the passenger side bulb had in fact blown (taking a fuse with it), the second time however was when I joined a motorway (when I always turn dipped beams on - a throwback from when I was a biker in the seventies and eighties). On this occasion, when I got to the services doing the procedure mentioned earlier got rid of the warning - the bulb had not blown.

There's nothing in the handbook, I was wondering if this is some sort of random reminder to check the lights, or is it something else? I ask because it did it yesterday, the last time was on the M5 on my way up to Norwich - end of December last year - and it's bugging me.

I use the BOSCH bulbs that are apparently the factory options and everything else is fine, including recently having a new battery, new timing belt was fitted about 30,000 miles ago, alternator working fine (garage told me so).

Any advice would be appreciated.

[mickthemaverick]

I am just working through some older unanswered posts and I saw this one. Did you find an answer to the problem?

[Fejinwales]

@mickthemaverick,

Unfortunately not really. It did it a number of times, the last time whilst driving up to Norwich, I stopped in Rugby services for a break and when I got back in the car and started it, it came on again...but this time doing the usual off/on stuff didn't work so I drove the rest of the way and decided to change the bulb when I got there. On arriving, my friend came out and asked me to start the car so he could see which bulb had gone - none of them had, and then the warning 'service' light went out. It was never solved. I've just sold the car as it began giving me a lot of trouble with the front geometry and a maddening check engine warning that said @engine fault, repair needed'. It never affected anything at all, car ran perfectly, fuel use was not changed, noting, it might stay there for three or thirty starts, and go off for weeks or a day....

[Richard_C]

@mickthemaverick,

I've just sold the car as it began giving me a lot of trouble with the front geometry and a maddening check engine warning that said @engine fault, repair needed'. It never affected anything at all, car ran perfectly, fuel use was not changed, noting, it might stay there for three or thirty starts, and go off for weeks or a day....

Selling might have been a wise move. I recall my Picasso gave odd headlight warnings about the same time the BPGA failed.