H7 bulb life

I installed new H7 bulb connectors this weekend as the ones that came with
the car were somewhat loose. (Ebay item 320240991299 if you are
interested). The most noticable thing was that the new connectors were VERY
tight. I thought I might break something as I had to push so hard to get
the connectors to snap onto the bulbs. I'm now wondering if this connection
loosens up with every bulb change and has something to do with early bulb
failure. Seems to me the bulbs lasted a lot longer when the car had less
than 50,000 miles on it than they do now. Anyway, new bulbs too - so we
will see how they do this time. They have been lasting about 3 months
lately, so 6 months will mean something, and 1 year will be very unusual.
Cross your fingers, and I'll keep you posted. I'll probably be doing our
other Hyundai in a few weeks, so I'll have two test cases to observe.

Dan

 

"Seems to me the bulbs lasted a lot longer when the car had less tha
50,000 miles on it than they do now."

Presuming you had the bulbs replaced under warranty at that time, th
number one thing I think this suggests is that the OE bulb brand had
longer lifespan. The one I pulled out of an Elantra today was brande
Osram. Didn't look at the new one; I'm not sure Hyundai is still usin
the same vendor

 

I installed new H7 bulb connectors this weekend as the ones that came with
the car were somewhat loose. (Ebay item 320240991299 if you are
interested). The most noticable thing was that the new connectors were VERY
tight. I thought I might break something as I had to push so hard to get
the connectors to snap onto the bulbs. I'm now wondering if this connection
loosens up with every bulb change and has something to do with early bulb
failure. Seems to me the bulbs lasted a lot longer when the car had less
than 50,000 miles on it than they do now. Anyway, new bulbs too - so we
will see how they do this time. They have been lasting about 3 months
lately, so 6 months will mean something, and 1 year will be very unusual.
Cross your fingers, and I'll keep you posted. I'll probably be doing our
other Hyundai in a few weeks, so I'll have two test cases to observe.

Dan

***

I do a lot of work on equipment with halogen lamps. Whenever the complaint
is short bulb life, we change the socket. It seems that a poor connection
(even though you can't see the bulb flicker) will cause greatly shortened
bulb life. I would think on a car where you have great extremes in
temperature, moisture, vibration etc, this would likely be the cause of most
of the short life problems.

Larry