2000 Sonata Headlights

I just got around to my headlight project.
I wrote last month that my high beams don't work. We established that
the relay's fine. I bought the car at the end of February.

** The bulbs are missing!

Bulb #H7 is molded into the cover plate.
Are any substitutes recommended these days?
Where's a good place to buy them?

Issue #2:
The plastic cover plates snap onto one tab at the top of the each
plastic headlight assembly. On one of the headlight units, the tab is
broken, so I can't fasten it. What's a good solution short of buying a
new headlight assembly?

Question?
Why would the seller of the car remove the high beam bulbs and close up
the covers?

What's even more surreal is how come I never noticed that my highs
didn't work?

Richard

 

You should be able to find an H7 at just about any auto parts supplier.

You might try to find a way to wedge the cover in place. I've seen
several with the covers off and have never seen any ill effects. If you
can't get it to stay, I'd let it go for a while to see if anything
happens.

Cars lead odd lives sometimes. People selling cars tend to not want to
spend money on fixing them. Perhaps the bulb was taken out to take to the
parts place and the person never went or they didn't have the bulb. Who
knows? Just remember that people are silly, do what's obvious, and
continue as normal.

 

Yes, that my local Autozone was out-of-stock (a frequent problem), amd
was much more expensive than Kragen. I called Osram/Sylvania; the woman
said, "I don't understand why a Korean manufacturer is using a
Eurpoean-type bulb."

I asked about the high-performance versions of the bulb ("Silver,"
Blue). She said that by law, they can't increase the power consumption
of the bulb. Therefore, the only way to increase the light output is by
running the filament harder -- in other words (my interpretation), using
a lower-voltage filament which will produce more lumens when fed a
higher voltage than its design spec. The fancy bulbs will also produce
more heat and therefore burn out faster. She said that the life of these
bulbs is substantially shorter. So, you pay twice the price or more, and
get a lot less life. Bottom line: you may be paying 4 times the cost of
the stock bulbs, or the equivalent of $96 for a set of high-beam bulbs,
or $192 for a set of all four -- a rather stiff price for blinding the
old folks coming towards you downtown at night.

I'm familiar with these lamp issues from electronics repair -- my late
bench technician always tried to replace certain dial light bulbs with
bulbs intended for higher voltage, thereby making the replacement bulbs
last forever at a cost of a slight loss of brightness.

Thinking about these auto bulb issues, it would seem that the federal
requirement is intended to prevent under-hood fires by ensuring that
stronger bulbs don't overload the cars' wiring. However, I can envision
that in certain vehicles, the use of a brighter aftermarket bulb could
possibly melt some plastic, like the molded lamp mount shape (part of
the elaborate headlight assembly). I've also seen a comment someplace
that bright bulbs caused the plastic bulb socket to become brittle and
fall apart.

Thanks. I drilled a couple of little holes and fastened the cover at one
corner with a wood screw. I can't get at the other side, but the one
screw will be better than nothing.

Yes. I just got around to replacing the former engine oil, which was an
unknown oil to me ("76" has changed hands twice in recent years -- who
knows what it is). I put in Castrol 10-40. Would 10-30 be a better
choice? The climate is never below 30 here, but the high end can include
long freeway upgrades at up to 105 degrees ambient (worst case).

After reading an amazingly thorough examination of oil filters on the
web, I hunted down a Wix filter at a NAPA store. It was pretty
expensive. The filter report by Mr. Knize is an awesome, exhaustive
piece of work that we all should read. Consumer Reports has never done
better. The report confirmed someting that I've been suspecting for a
few years: the regular Fram filters are junk. What he was trying to
determine was if you can get a good, inexpensive oil filter for everyday
use.

Go here: http://minimopar.knizefamily.net/oilfilterstudy.html#delco.

This is aimed for the classic Mopar folks, and if you click on any links
on the page, you'll find slightly different pages -- maybe newer data.
The guy is always going out, buying filters, and then slicing them apart
to evaluate what he finds inside them. He must have invested a small
personal fortune in this project, but I, for one, am grateful for the
information that he's provided for us.

Richard