My left low beam headlight burned out last week. I immediately noticed that the remaining right headlamp was much dimmer than it should be. This became even more noticeable when I replaced the burned out left capsule and was able to compare the two lit headlights.

I originally thought that the right bulb simply was dim because of its age. Just after I turned the bulb to remove it from the headlamp fixture, it shot out with a loud popping sound into my hand. As can be seen from the picture below, the quartz capsule apparently got sufficiently hot to distort and buldge out from the pressure inside the capsule. The buldge did rupture but the fixture remained sealed due to the o-ring (not in picture) at the base of the bulb. For some unknown period of time the volume of the headlight fixture actually became an integral part of the "interior" of the bulb.

I just thought this was a unique bulb failure. I have been using similar type of quartz-halogen lamps since I replaced my standard headlights with Cibie Z-Beams in 1975. I have never seen or heard of a similar failure. I also thought it was very intersesting that the ruptured lamp continued to work even though gasses were under much less pressure and mixed with considerable contaminants including oxygen.

BTW, both bulbs were original factory equipment in my 1998 3.0 CL.

 

don't know???? thats some weird shit!!!!!!

 

back when i first got my 97 3.0, i noticed the headlights were really dim, so I took the bulbs out and they looked just like that... I brought it back to acura like a week after I got it and they told me that I touched the bulbs and they would not replace them. You can tell its something that occured over a period of time, not a friggen week...

I have no clue what the cause of it is (or was)

 

What causes bubbles in halogen light bulbs are oils. Acura was right when they said it was by...not you most likely, but someone touching the bulb. If you touch the bulb, even for a second or even on the smallest section, you will leave finger oils on the bulb and that is what causes the burn outs and bubbles. Sorry to hear that happen...but that's what it looks like to me. Someone touched your bulb and it bubbled where the oil was.

 

SumkidwithaCL, although you never handled the bulbs, the dealer was correct in that somewhere sometime someone did touch them. It is likely that someone replaced both factory bulbs and was not smart enough to keep from touching them.

The failure of the quatz envelope is really not uncommon and is almost certainly due to a contaminant (organic matter and/or salts) leaching into the quartz and weakening it. The organic contaminants also carbonize causing hot spots in an area already weakened. The bulb I pictured above was installed at the factory and was never removed from the fixture until a few days ago. There is no telling what happened to it before it was installed. Most likely it was touched by someone at the factory at some time.

However, what I think is amazing, is the fact that the bulbs seem to continue to burn for some indeterminate period of time in the pressurized headlamp housing after they rupture. I would have expected the filaments to fail very quickly in the much diluted halogen atmosphere with a relatively large amount of O2 present.

 

Same thing happened to my car. Now the right headlamp assembly is "stained" on the inside. The reflectors now make the housing appear brown...Horribly unattractive

 

my superwhite bulb blew out in the housing, stripping the chrome off the top of the reflector and leaving blue glass chunks in my housing :angry: but my stock bulbs look like that picture! They're not blown all the way through but they do have bubbles!

 

Blacura, I strongly suggest you replace the bulbs with the bubbles ASAP. I was lucky and there is no apparent damage or discoloring to the housing. This is suprising because halogen gasses are extremely corrosive. Since the reflective coating is probably only molecules thick, it does not take much to damage them.

I know most of you will disagree with me, but do not replace them with PIAA bulbs. If you do some research into what PIAA markets, you will find that they seem to have the biggest scam going. They sell bulbs at 4x the cost of competitive products because they make you believe you see more. In reality you see less than what a good quality "standard" bulb allows. Let me explain.

It appears that they even though they advertise how bright their bulbs are they really do not achieve any consequential increase in total light output. What they seem to do is narrow the "hot spot" in front of the car so the center of the lit area is indeed brighter. Unfortunately, this is at the expense of less light in the all important peripheral areas (like the shoulder of the road). PIAA will not publish the total lumen output but reputable vendors, e.g. Osram-Sylvania, readily publish this data. This should say something.

PIAA (as do most other manufacturers) also makes the light appear brighter in most of their bulbs by giving it a blue color. This can only be done with an incandescent lamp by removing some of the yellow wave lengths which comprise the overwhelming majority of light energy (blue comprises only a minor amount of the total light). This makes the blue light more predominant so the overall color becomes bluish. I understand that upwards of 30 to 40% of the total available light is lost. In contrast, real HID lamps truly provide very bright white light. This means that they have a very even distribution of light across the entire spectrum and no one color predominates (like yellow does in an incandescent lamp). They have the blue appearance, only when looking directly at them, because there is a small spike of blue light at the upper end of the spectrum. This blue spike does not comprise any consequential energy but it is enough to give the light a blue appearance. Lighting engineers refer to this blue spike as "throw away" energy because it is not useful or taken credit for in the design of the lighting system. The point is, HID lamps look blue because of the blue spike, not because any of the needed light has been filtered out. Also, the area HID lamps illuminate has a very white appearance. The blue, because of its inconsequential energy content, can only be seen when looking directly at the lamps.

One other thing. If your a lighting engineer, one of the worst colors you can pick for a headlamp is blue. This is because blue is scattered significantly more than any other color. That is why the sky is blue. That is also why it is much hardrer to see in fog, mist, rain, etc. if the light is comparitively rich with blue energy. Yellow, on the other hand, does not scatter very much (as compared to blue). This is why many fog lamps are yellow. For many years European countries required yellow headlights for this reason. When the yellow is filtered out, as in the HID wannabe bulbs, not only is there much less total light, but the now comparitively higher concentration of blue makes it harder to see when it is not completely clear weather.

I did not intend for this to be so long but I thought this was important to explain because PIAA and other similar products are dangerous and much too expensive compared to other lights. You simply cannot see as well with them. Even with the best of headlights it is easy to outdrive the distance you can see so you really cannot have too much light. From my own experience I have found that the OSRAM-Sylvania Xtravision bulbs are about as good as they get (short of a HID system). The filament is precision mounted so the light source is reliably at the exact spot it was intended to be by the reflector designer. They are also only $10 apiece. I also have no connection with Sylvania, their Xtravision bulbs just seem to be excellent (Sylvania also markets blue bulbs but they have the same problems as do all the blue colored bulbs).

 

Damn, I never knew I could get a class on the technological advances and discretions of automotive lighting, you guys amaze me.

I replaced my factory lights when one had a bubble in it, but it worked fine. I replaced them with some cheap Korean knock offs, and they worked great for about a month, then I upgraded to PIAA Xtreme whites, I haven't had any problems whatsoever with them. Sometime this week, I am upgrading again to Eagleye HID lights, so I'll try to do a comparison of the light output for you guys.

It sucks that you guys have had significant light failures, but it is a good thing to know for the rest of us, just a few things to look out for from our cars.

Thanks for the info guys, it was well appreciated.

 

damn it, I thought I was done with school!!

Good info though!

Some old guy had the car before me, so I highly doubt he changed them seeing how he had acura do all the service on the car. Some moron at the acura assembly plant dosent know how to install headlight bulbs.

I too agree on the PIAA bulb explanation... especially since ive seen them compared to my HID's.

Sylvania does make some good bulbs... thats all they make, they better be good at it!! I like the Silverstar's they came out with... they are like $20 a piece, but are actually close to daylight color, with just the right amont of yellow still there... I have them for high beams and they almost rival my HID's, just not as intense.