rjp
Active Member
- Joined
- May 2, 2009
- Messages
- 216
- Reaction score
- 63
- Points
- 28
- Members Ride
- WM Caprice with LS3
I recently reported that the headlights in my Caprice (Bi Xenon) weren't all that good.
The other night driving home, I passed a mid 80's Corona. As he dipped his high beam, I hit mine only to find that my high beam was worse than his.....
I've had the car back to the dealer who informed me that everything checked out fine and that I'd just have to get used to them. If I wanted to take thing further, I could contact Holden.
So I did.....
When I rang, the helpful bloke at Holden took my details, noted my concern, and then rang the dealer to find out what they did. He then repeated to me everything that the dealer told me....so much for taking things further. He then went on to say that these headlights had been fitted to thousands of other cars in Australia and were fine. I repeated calmly many times that I didn't give two tosses about how many other cars had the headlights fitted, the ones fitted to my car weren't very good and that I considered them to be a safety issue that I wanted Holden to address. His response? I could take the car to an auto electrician and get them to work out if a higher wattage bulb could be fitted or not, and if so, what size it could be. I could then take the car back to Holden and they would fit the new bulb (the manual says that you have to take a Caprice back to them to change teh headlight bulbs). I protested that why I should pay to work out the tollerances of their car? Shouldn't they already know that? His response? They're not auto electricians......
In the end, we decided that I would take the vehicle to another Holden dealer for them to check it out and a case was opened; number 1-82106191. If they find anything wrong, then Holden may do something about it.
Now for the interesting part (I hope someone from Holden actually reads this forum).
Yesterday, I turned on the approach lights option as where I park the car at work is undercover and poorly lit at the end of the day. As I approached the car and unlocked it, the headlights came on (obviuosly). For some reason, I was drawn to the left hand headlight as it didn't look right for some reason. It took me a few seconds to work out what was wrong; the internal bulb itself was very dull and covered in finger prints and what looks like wipe marks from a rag. The right hand one wasn't much better.
So at some time in it's life, the car has had it's headlight bulbs replaced or at least played with and the num knut that did the work left his paw prints all over the bulb. In trying to clean up, he's only made it worse.
The original dealer didn't spot it. The car goes to the other dealer on Tuesday. I'll be interested to see if they spot it.
The other night driving home, I passed a mid 80's Corona. As he dipped his high beam, I hit mine only to find that my high beam was worse than his.....
I've had the car back to the dealer who informed me that everything checked out fine and that I'd just have to get used to them. If I wanted to take thing further, I could contact Holden.
So I did.....
When I rang, the helpful bloke at Holden took my details, noted my concern, and then rang the dealer to find out what they did. He then repeated to me everything that the dealer told me....so much for taking things further. He then went on to say that these headlights had been fitted to thousands of other cars in Australia and were fine. I repeated calmly many times that I didn't give two tosses about how many other cars had the headlights fitted, the ones fitted to my car weren't very good and that I considered them to be a safety issue that I wanted Holden to address. His response? I could take the car to an auto electrician and get them to work out if a higher wattage bulb could be fitted or not, and if so, what size it could be. I could then take the car back to Holden and they would fit the new bulb (the manual says that you have to take a Caprice back to them to change teh headlight bulbs). I protested that why I should pay to work out the tollerances of their car? Shouldn't they already know that? His response? They're not auto electricians......
In the end, we decided that I would take the vehicle to another Holden dealer for them to check it out and a case was opened; number 1-82106191. If they find anything wrong, then Holden may do something about it.
Now for the interesting part (I hope someone from Holden actually reads this forum).
Yesterday, I turned on the approach lights option as where I park the car at work is undercover and poorly lit at the end of the day. As I approached the car and unlocked it, the headlights came on (obviuosly). For some reason, I was drawn to the left hand headlight as it didn't look right for some reason. It took me a few seconds to work out what was wrong; the internal bulb itself was very dull and covered in finger prints and what looks like wipe marks from a rag. The right hand one wasn't much better.
So at some time in it's life, the car has had it's headlight bulbs replaced or at least played with and the num knut that did the work left his paw prints all over the bulb. In trying to clean up, he's only made it worse.
The original dealer didn't spot it. The car goes to the other dealer on Tuesday. I'll be interested to see if they spot it.
