S60 Headlight Warranty Issue

[kieranbennett]

I bought a 2006 S60 D5 about six months ago and have been very happy with it.

Over Christmas it was left for two weeks in Stanstead's car park, during which time the UK had a bit of a cold spell.

I was a bit surprised on returning to find the drivers side headlight looking like this;




The car had been left parked nose towards a hedge and the damage certainly wasn't there when I left it.

On closer inspection there is no evidence of any impact damage at all.

During our current cold spell I've been shocked to see cracks starting to appear in the passengers side headlight as well




Now these are very light surface cracks but are steadily getting worse.

As the car is still under warranty i arranged for my local dealer to have a look. They have taken pictures of the lights and sent them to Volvo UK to see if they will allow the lights to be replaced under warranty.

My argument is that the lights show no sign of impact damage (which the dealer agrees with) and that the cold has cracked the lenses.

The dealer thinks that Volvo UK won't allow the warranty claim as the lights could have had high powered bulbs in the past, although there is no proof of this and it certainly hasn't had any in whilst I've owned the car.

Does anybody have any advice for what to do? I've recently been made redundant so need to sell the car, but its going to be difficult with the lights in their present condition (I believe the drivers side would be an MOT fail for when it needs its first check in July) and Can't afford the £500+ bill to replace the lights either!

[F i F]

I can't see the photos, suspect it is work blocking the links.

tbh I can't see how it is possible to claim that extreme cold in UK is responsible for cracking the lenses. What has it been -15C at lowest? I got down to -28C this morning in Volvo's home country so frankly I suspect they will reject your claim and cite something else responsible.

Nothing available from a scrapper?

[kieranbennett]

To be fair I couldn't believe the cold had caused it, however the cracks on the passenger side are definitely growing in the cold spell we've had over the past week.

A local scrapper has some unit's that he wants £100 a side for

[F i F]

kieranbennett said:

A local scrapper has some unit's that he wants £100 a side for

[K321]

i had to get a headlight replaced on my s60, the bulb had simply popped, and as it was xenon, cost £240 quid

Edited by K321 on Monday 16th February 13:56

[T5R+]

F i F said:

kieranbennett said:

A local scrapper has some unit's that he wants £100 a side for

Imagine how much the active Xenons are (hint £560) . This is for the V70 GIII.

If someone knows where I can find standard headlight o/s/f or recommend breaker in NW England - appreciated . This is for a 2007 S60.

Have wondered many times how susceptible the lenses are in the cold - not good news.

[F i F]

T5R+ said:

F i F said:

kieranbennett said:

A local scrapper has some unit's that he wants £100 a side for

Imagine how much the active Xenons are (hint £560) . This is for the V70 GIII.

If someone knows where I can find standard headlight o/s/f or recommend breaker in NW England - appreciated . This is for a 2007 S60.

Have wondered many times how susceptible the lenses are in the cold - not good news.

So glad I didn't order active Xenons on my current one.

tbh I'm not sure it's just the cold there has to be more to this.

Eg my last V50 had 100w H7s in dipped beam and 100W H(whatevers) in the main beam units. Aside: will not do that again the beam patterns were better with proper standard Bosch bulbs, serves me right for buying cheap carp from Biltema. I digress, sorry.

The headlights have been exposed to temperatures low enough to freeze the jets using washer fluid available on "draft" from Statoil stations. That is supposed to be guaranteed down to -18C.

Even had a 5L container of Halfords stuff that I'm fairly sure I'd premixed to be good for -10C or so, that was solid. Not just a bit crusty, but solid, and all the way through, like one of those packs you put in the freezer to go into a picnic cool box. That was INSIDE the car after a week of stupidly low temps. And it was parked undercover, albeit an open multi storey. The thermometer on the office window was registering -28C some days.


Never a problem with the lenses until the day it went back. Of course there may be a post on a forum somewhere saying "I've bought this direct ex fleet V50 and now after the cold snap..."

Unable to help with the breakers, not my part of the world, other than suggest the obvious, i.e. fleabay and the various search engines for breakers. Never had much luck with those personally. Not much help I know, sorry.