Davie's french attraction.

[Hell Razor5543]

This fiasco just about takes the biscuit for me. We have been driving for years on perfectly adequate headlights, since the advent of the sealed beam really, which has of course improved to halogen etc over the years. If one blew it was a new bulb for a fiver, if one got smashed it was a new unit for fifty quid or so or a tenner from the breakers! Now we are going down another ludicrous engineering development for no real need which results in the best part of a grand to replace when the youngster's bike falls against the headlight by accident and breaks it, see Elaine's troubles here. Pure lunacy and a waste of very talented people's time and effort IMO. They could be much better employed trying to kill Covid or see all the kids in the world get clean water and we all get non polluting energy. But no, they are pratting about developing unnecessary stuff because they can!! and the reason??? MONEY!!!

There are not enough PROPER engineers left in the world. A PROPER engineer KNOWS the first rule of engineering, which is "If it ain't broke don't fix it". What we seem to have too MANY accountants who like to tinker with things, to make them 'better' so they can then justify charging a far higher price for the 'better' device (on an escalating scale; if it is twice as good they think they can charge four times as much, three times as good = nine times the price, and so on). The accountant 'engineer' never learnt the second rule of engineering (or even that there IS a second rule), which is "KISS; Keep It Simple, Son".

Yes, there should always be advancements in technology that will benefit people, but this needs to be done with thought and care. Tinkering because you can may not be a good enough reason (other than for gaining knowledge (which could easily be "Oops, that didn't work, and where did my eyebrows go?")), but tinkering because there is a GENUINE need certainly is.

[Zelandeth]

Sorry this is causing you such headaches Davie. Has definitely helped cement my insistence that I'll never buy a car with HID lights. Only exception would be if it were new enough to be under warranty...and would be out the door the moment it wasn't any more.

... Though that's never going to happen given how distasteful I tend to find the driving experience of anything new enough to fill that description!

Edit: okay, I do need to qualify that statement with an exception. If I could afford it I'd buy a Tesla Model S tomorrow. Wouldn't discount a 3 either though I'd need to drive one to make that decision.

Have driven a Model S P90D and it very well fitted with me. Also yes, the torque is utterly addictive. There's no way such a big, heavy lump of a car should be able to get up and go that rapidly.

Still not sold on the looks of them, but I'd deal with that for the comfort, space and go.

[daviemck2006]

I've never owned or driven a car where the lights have been so poor that it needs hid lights at the price they are over halogen headlights at a few quid for a bulb and two minutes changing them. I dont know if it's possible but I would like to buy two halogen headlights from a breaker and adapt the wiring to suit,

[daviemck2006]

I've came to the conclusion that I do need a replacement left headlight for the leon. It was the left light that got the water ingress and went out to start with. I then swapped the ballasts so the original to the car ballast was in the left light and it worked once the light was dried out. New aftermarket ballast in the right light, worked ok but never got them coded to the car. Left light waterlogged again and went out during the mot, giving me the fail. Suspected second original ballast failed. I removed bumper and both lights, swapped ballasts tried the lights, quick flash of left light, suspected third ballast fail. I cant afford to keep blowing ballasts at £40 a time ebay prices, let alone seat ones at £380! Spied one on ebay for £20 so have ordered it, I hope that gets the drivers side going, which if it does kind of proves my theory that the left light is shorted out inside somewhere rendering it useless. So I'm now on the hunt for a complete left side xenon headlight for a 2012 seat leon. Just in case any of you nice french car lovers has one in your pockets. Two hopes of that, Bob Hope and his brother. Bob Hope is dead and did not have a brother so I'm f****d then

[Zelandeth]

Doesn't take much damp to short something like this out - bearing in mind that the pulse provided by the ballast to start the lamp will be in the order of 4,000 to 10,000 volts...

[CitroJim]

This has put me right off HID lights for sure...

Hope you can soon resolve it without too much more pain and expense Davie...

[daviemck2006]

I've sourced a replacement headlight with genuine ballast fitted out of a 2012 accident damaged car, cost £200 ouch. That should take care of the left light. Another cheapy ballast off ebay for another £40 and that should see them working and a mot pass. I will probably still have a warning on the dash and need diagnostics to sort it properly. That's £240 quid I could have been doing without spending. It is still my intention to sell the car in a couple of months, after the worst of the weather and hopefully the worst of the covid lockdown is over. I will be very wary of buying any other car with xenon headlights again. And they are supposed to be an improvement! That's 4 cars I have had with them, and that's what would have written off the white c5 when I bumped it, the cost of a light. The c4vts and pug 407 couple both had them too and although they all had good lights, not good enough of an improvement to justify the costs involved when they need stuff doing to them.

[Zelandeth]

Yep, off the top of my head I can think of three people who have had cars essentially written off by failures in them. Not even breakages, just failures.

[daviemck2006]

The replacement headlight and another replacement ballast have been fitted and the MOT passed. Definitely a short in the headlight as one of the terminals of both the ballast and the light are burnt black. There will be two busted ballasts, one genuine valeo one which was the original one, and one aftermarket one shall be finding their way to Jim soon so he can dissect them to see what's inside them. The replacement ballast I got this time was marked for a bmw 1 series, with a different part number, but cross reference to the seat one. It only cost £20 including postage, for a new item. Obviously a cheap copy, but it is working so it will do.

[CitroJim]

Excellent news Davie and congrats on the MoT pass

[daviemck2006]

I dont usually put cheap copies on to my cars but in this case £380ish from Seat for a genuine valeo one or £20 from an ebay seller for a copy it was a no brainer. It's also because it's a headlight it's not going to be a danger and possibly cause a crash if it fails in use. I'm still going to need the car onto a vagcom to eliminate the warning light on the dash saying it's not working! I may have to live with that warning light, that may be the price to pay for saving £360 on the purchase price of the unit.

[CitroJim]

I may have to live with that warning light, that may be the price to pay for saving £360 on the purchase price of the unit.

A bit of black insulation tape placed strategically will sort out that Davie Unless you wish to dismantle the dash and remove the bulb!

Did the MoT man not question the warning light? I ask that as whilst I was up in the air on the ramp in the MoT bay yesterday I spotted a big poster on the wall detailing all the warning lights to observe during the test on a large variety of cars...

Although, going by your other posts it appears your MoT is a proper bloke who will apply a bit of common sense and pragmatism to the situation... The light works and the warning light bulb is good... That'll do nicely

[daviemck2006]

With xenon lights that have self levelling, which all xenon lights are supposed to have, along with headlight washers, the self levelling is supposed to work, as are the washers. Now Seat did not fit headlight washers to the Leon, and there is no way of testing the headlight self levelling. The warning light could be lit for a front foglight out, not a testable item, so therefore he can ignore that. That's what the man said to me, even though I asked specifically about the self levelling. He is a proper bloke right enough, always busy doing tests and does very little servicing and repairs now. He cant be far from retirement age now, and I will really miss him.

[CitroJim]

That's an excellent attitude shown by your MoT man Davie Like you, I wonder how much longer nine will go on for, not due to his age but the state of his premises!

[CitroJim]

I received your duff HID ballasts today Davie

I have now completed my forensic investigation...

Opening them was a tricky...

Here's the genuine VAG and aftermarket copy together...

Genuine on the left...

You can see clearly the VAG one has suffered serious water ingress and concomitant serious corrosion .over a long period.. I suspect because of a failed lid gasket...

Corroded VAG Ballast

This is the internals of the copy...

Copy Internals

I can see why the copy failed... It suffered a flashover across its high voltage contacts. You can clearly see the scorching in this picture:

Scorcher!

I suspect this is because the connector contacts on the printed circuit are only (badly) tin-solder plated rather than being gold plated as they are in the genuine VAG Ballast...

You can see the gold plating here in the picture below... Compare and contrast with the slivery solder contacts in the copy ballast above...

Gold plating on contacts...

This may have resulted in a poor contact and the resultant initiation of a flashover which killed the ballast.

May I suggest you check the connector plug contacts for cleanliness and good contact to ensure the same does not potentially happen again... As the genuine one died from being very wet for a protracted period, there may be corrosion in the connector plug...

That was an interesting forensic session Thanks Davie!