Intermittent Xenon
 

Left xenon stopped working the other day on the way home from work. Decided to invesitage in the morning as it was late but it started working again.

Its happening more and more often. But now its stopped working again. I presumed it was the bulb failing so swapped them over to clarify. Still happening on the left hand side though. Any ideas on the issue?

Chris

If it's not the bulb it's either wiring or the electronics (ballast). Not sure how easily you can swap the ballasts over.

Had exactly the same problem - it's the ballast, Light unit has to come out and they're still a pig to remove!

Oh buggar!

Expensive fix?

IIRC I got a second hand light unit on ebay and swapped the whole unit. Try our sponsors and ebay first

I had the same problem when the ballast went. Could also be the igniter behind the bulb, but the ballast is most likely. Took me an hour to swap on the passenger side, headlight didn't have to come out.
They're not that expensive. I think this is it?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-Hella-...wAAOSwI-BWHqI2

edit: sorry that one is for D3 not D2 don't know if they're the same.

Blinking headlights
 

This is a problem that has afflicted my trusty steed for the last two to three months or so. I tried and failed badly in attempting to fix it. Mine is an A8L 2000 FL with Xenons. You can hopefully see from the attached photos that what I suspect to be the ballast is tucked away inside the headlamp housing and I didn't fancy taking that apart, to be honest.

Please feel free to ignore my persuasion tool in the first photo. I use it to whack my Dad on the head when he's not paying attention to me as I bark instructions at him.

Out of curiosity, did the ballast fix it ? I'm just asking because I've been having the same problem for a while. Mine seems to be much worse when it's cold weather than it does when it's warm.

They're actually not that tricky to strip down completely

The control units changed from separate parts mounted in the inner wings to combined units from 2001 - early ones the left one comes out via the wheel arch liner, the right you have to take the headlight out and it's bolted to a panel underneath

From 2001 the units are screwed to the sides of the headlights.

Does it throw a fault code with the light not coming on? If it's J343 or J434 then it's the control unit. If it throws N195 it's the starter unit buried inside the headlight

pdfs attached :)

Adrian