powerplant9

My lights are not nearly as bright as they used to be and I am suspecting the bulbs are wearing out. I've been searching on this for awhile but I'm still not sure.

I have a 04 A8L 4.2 with level adjusting lights. I see people talking about adaptive lights and I am assuming I don't have this as I don't see the lights moving when I go around corners.

Anyway.... will any D2S type bulb work for me?

Will any D2S bulb give me high and low beams or do I need to purchase D2S bulbs that are specifically labled "Bi-xenon"?

I plan on staying with 4300k for the best performance (I don't care for the racer boy blue / purple look anyway)

Any help is appreciated... just trying to get the right bulbs at the lowest cost.

MP4.2+6.0

for the bulb numbering nomenclature. Thus, yes get any (quality) HID bulb labeled D2S for starters. Low and high beam is accomplished by mechanically moving the lens in front of the bulb when you click the high beam switch (or on older Audi's with HID's by using a complete second halogen lamp further toward the car center of the headlamp assembly), not by a second filament or some such like in the old conventional bulb days.

If you search on ebay for D2S, I have found some vendors there in the past that sell name brand bulbs like OSRAM, Hella, etc. that are OEM spec for good prices ($70-90/bulb as I recall (upper end of range included shipping I think). Yes, get the 4300 K bulbs. Replace in pairs for even color appearance of both lamps. And yes, if they have a few thousand hours of use, lumen output is likely down significantly, and you will probably find the outer glass etched a bit from the extreme heat at the glass surface.

powerplant9

Cool... that was the answer I was hoping for. I know tightwads shouldn't own a 85K vehicle but I think I am going to try the $10 bulbs I see on ebay, I just had it in my head that "Bi" meant 2 filiments. I figure if I go through a pair of $10 bulbs every couple years I will be happy.

Thanks for the quick reply... this may save me hitting a deer as my lights are getting quite dim.

Mister Bally

I resemble that remark!

powerplant9

I ended up going for what I think are Philips brand. $50 shipped off ebay. They are probably fakes but how do you know I guess. I'm looking forward to being able to see again.

I used to have an 03 Allroad and a 00 A6.... both with HID.... both were excelent for lighting up the way. I was looking for the same thing when I bought the A8L and was very dissapointed... hopefully this straightens out the problem.

Mike_k

With eBay sellers have no accountability. Competition is so high that everyone sells the same garbage and will label it whatever they need to to get a one up on the competition and if they get caught they just start a new user name or suffer with bad feedback from the few that catch on.

For that reason, the Philips bulbs you bought are probably identical to the pair of bulbs I bought for $10 shipped. Keep that in mind for future eBay dealings.