Xenon headlights...any good

[Stefan05]

Looking at a used car with Xenon headlights (Audi). What are these like ? Fair amount of cars seem to have LED lights. Are these abit old school ?

[Squishey]

Xenons have a higher light output than LEDs also if they fail then you can replace individual components (lamp, igniter, ballast) rather than having to replace the whole headlight unit.

They might not be the latest technology but, IMO, they're better.

[Ari]

I had xenons on my last car. My experience was that compared with conventional headlights, they are brighter on dipped beam but they don't actually illuminate any further down the road (so the bit they do illuminate is nice and bright but they don't really help you to see further). Full beam is awesome.

The modern LED lights are extremely clever, they feature a huge array of 'pinprick' lights, which allows them to light up further, but 'block out' (for example) the car in front or oncoming traffic (which they do automatically, you don't have to constantly flick between dip and main). Have a look on Youtube, lot of good videos about how they work and how they look in practice.

Xenon is certainly an improvement over halogen and I think worth having, but LED look to be in a different league altogether (I've had little first hand experience however).

[DoubleSix]

Got Xenon on one car and LED on the other, much prefer the Xenon!! So much brighter and the auto levelling stops me fiddling.

Caveat to the above is that most (German) manufacturers offer two tiers of LED via a pricey option. The full blown LED Matrix system is supposed to be epic, but that’s not what you’re getting from the standard LED set up which I think is as much about cost saving as anything else.

[Ari]

DoubleSix said:

The full blown LED Matrix system is supposed to be epic, but that’s not what you’re getting from the standard LED set up which I think is as much about cost saving as anything else.

Ah, that's what I was talking about, didn't realise there was a 'lesser' version.

[paradigital]

“Lesser” LEDs in my 2017 S3 saloon, and Xenons in my 2004 TT V6 (that have had freshly refurbished lenses)

The S3 is massively brighter and illuminates further down the road. I’d happily take the “lesser” LEDs again.

[Tomo1971]

Stefan05 said:

Looking at a used car with Xenon headlights (Audi). What are these like ? Fair amount of cars seem to have LED lights. Are these abit old school ?

Judging by the number people on various forums whom have halogen bulbs who want to upgrade to Xenon or LED via cheapo HID kits etc from eBay, you would be better buying the car with Xenon in the first place - as others have said, far better than Halogen burners.

They do fade over time and life expectancy of the Xenon 'bulb' is about 7 years but are readily available but would buy in a pair so they match when replaced.

Some of them have 'adaptive headlights' - so as well as auto adjusting up and down, when driving at certain speed, the unit inside the headlamp actually swivels to the right or left as you take a corner so that it illuminates the corner - not taking about the DRL lighting up here - something that Citroen I believe did with their original DS - Its quite cool and I actually miss it - was a feature on my Yeti (Even my wifes Seat Altea has it) but my A6, having LED lights does not.

[thisisnotaspoon]

[Quote]Judging by the number people on various forums whom have halogen bulbs who want to upgrade to Xenon or LED via cheapo HID kits etc from eBay,
[/quote]

World of difference. The upgrade kits are generally rubbish.

At the end of the day, dipped beams are still dipped to a cut off, so however bright they are is no major difference. And main beams, theres always posh halogen bulbs.

The matrix lighting is cool though, IIRC volvo have a similar system with a mirror on a servo that moves infront of the bulb to block it from oncoming cars.