ajg617

Wife has been complaining about her headlights not lighting up the road well on her 05 Cab. I drove it the other night and she's correct. We did purchase it used and its first life was on Cape Cod so everything was sandblasted - there are pits in the plastic headlight lenses that I cannot get out. I've had them professionally cleaned 2 times now but they yellow in months and even when clean, the lights aren't very bright (about 138K on the car). The Xenon's are on and don't flicker but they do appear dim compared to my 08 Avant. I've had a Xenon bulb go bad on my old Avant, but it turned to pink light. The replacements (from Audi) were much brighter and I was told at the time, that Xenon's do dim over the lifetime of the bulb.
That said, I'm figuring on replacing the entire headlight assemblies on both sides with new OEMs unless I can find a quality aftermarket (haven't yet). Anyone have suggestions on replacement Xenon bulbs? Don't want blue - just nice bright headlights.
Thanks,
AJG

drpancho

Not specific to the B6 , but in all my previous cars OEM headlights were always far superior to aftermarket.
What I would try to do would be to check the manufacturer and source directly instead of going through the AUDI dealer. On my A6 headlights are from Hella .

Regarding bulbs I would buy Osram or Philips.

ajg617

I'll pull one of the bulbs shortly because, like yourself, I've never had any luck with aftermarket, at least on the halogen side. There are a great number of D2S bulbs out there all with different specs. I might pull one on my 08 Avant because those are absolutely tops. I'm still having sticker shock over the price of the headlight assemblies.....