Water in the headlight?

How the heck does this happen? I know that rock chips in the headlight glass can sometimes allow water in, but about a month ago I noticed my passenger side light had water on the inside of the lens, and a few days later the drivers side showed the same. Neither of them looks like they have rock hits, so how does this happen? It's not like this is a humid environment and the front end didn't get dunked in a lake...Sylvania XTravision sealed lights.

They're not sealed anymore.

There's a crack someplace, or the seals have failed.

Yucca-Man said:

It's not like this is a humid environment and the front end didn't get dunked in a lake...Sylvania XTravision sealed lights.

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I used to have these on my old Peugeot 505, and had exactly the same problem. As far as I could tell, it was caused by heat and vibration weakening the seal on its outer edge (I took the light out, submerged it in the tub, and watched water seep in). Granted, that's not as extreme an application as in an XJ, but it should say something about the longevity of the sealed part of the sealed beam.

I grabbed a pair of new ones today but haven't installed them yet. After typing this I went to look at them and wondered the same thing. I thik the part that really bugged me was that they both failed so close together. My tranny lines did that last year a few weeks apart, so I'm thinking "bad things always happen in twos" with this Heep...

No I believe the saying goes, bad things happen in threes. So watch out.
How much water are you talking about, condensation or worse?
If it makes you feel better, I had both silverstars fail after 3 or 4 months about a few weeks apart from one another.

A traditional sealed beam bulb will blow immediately if
it even gets air into it (or the inert gas gets out..).

I'm guessing these guys must actually have a small halogen bulb
mounted inside a full size housing. Somebody want to grab a hammer
and find out? Anyway, if its a bulb-in-a-bulb design you could be leaking
at the seal where the encapsulated bulb is mounted.

CIBIE had a light out for the 7" rounds and squares called a 'bobbi', it had a glass envelope that surrounded the H4 bulb. Strangest thing is they were very prone to getting holes in the lense and you'd end up with condensation in there. I'd take em out, put em in the toaster oven at 200 or so for 20 min to dry everything out and then put a dab of silicone over the hole. Still have one around here somewhere from my S10. After like my third lense I gave up on the bobbi's, they just seemed too prone to breakage and went back to spending the extra bucks on the normal CIBIE rectangulars.

I've had the same pair of SilverStars for over a year with no problems; however, I've gone through three sets of fog lamps in the factory (under-bumper) location. Always the same thing--water gets in and blows the bulbs, then corrodes the crap out of all the metal. This never happens to my lights on top of the bumper or my rack-mounted lights in back. In my case, it's just because of the general wetness of where I live. Yours must be bad seals.

gjxj said:

I'm guessing these guys must actually have a small halogen bulb
mounted inside a full size housing. Somebody want to grab a hammer
and find out?

Click to expand...

No need - Colorado used to actually sand their roads before some joker started buying MgCl spray. Back in those days, I got plenty of rock hits against the lights and have had penetration through the glass lens but the light will keep shining...they are definitely a bulb-in-bulb type of construction.