In reply to kb58 :
Same here, SWMBO's car had a portion of the LED strip fail. $5,500 to replace the entire unit, no ability to repair. The real kicker: the warranty considered headlights 'wear items' and listed them as sealed beams.
Traded it in that month.
Recon1342 said:Duke said:Keith Tanner said:In reply to alfadriver :
Ford seems to change the F150 lights about every three weeks, and the second biggest news about the new Maverick is that it has new front lights for no reason.
That's because they are still perfecting how to blind every oncoming driver within half a mile.
Quoted for TRUTH!
"It increases driver safety!"
Yeah, by decreasing it for everyone else within a five-mile radius. Berkeleying morons.
You don't buy an F150 because you care about other people.
In reply to Trent :
I got PPF on my Toyobaru's headlights to protect them.
Didn't protect one from getting crunched along with the rest of the car's nose though...
alfadriver said:In reply to Keith Tanner :
I understand they break. That's why I asked how often. The leds are better than the halogens which are better than the incandescent.
As for the expensive cars turning into cheap cars, that's a different problem that is far, far more than the lights.
Obviously nobody has hard data on how often they break. But I'd be willing to wager that the vast majority of GRM readers have had to replace a headlight for reasons other than "the bulb burnt out", and those reasons still exist.
Expensive cars turning into cheap cars mean that expensive parts become more of a problem. If there's no functional reason for the 2024 Maverick and 2025 Maverick to have different light assemblies, then Ford is just creating a problem for their parts departments and their customers by increasing parts count and cost. And that's not an expensive car. But it is a truck that might bump into things as part of normal use. It's not just Ford, of course, but Ford is the one who put out the press release this week bragging about a new headlight design for the Maverick.
That was another thing that owning the Jag taught me, that just because we bought what was once an expensive car for less than half, that doesn't apply to the parts. The dealership doesn't care if you paid full MSRP or got a killer deal on a used one, that headlight assembly is $$$$ regardless.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
Ok.
But I guess I should not remind people if they want to have some say in what is in new cars, they need to buy new cars. Ford and other OEM's do what they do because people pay for it in new cars. Can't really blame them for trying to make as much money as possible- that's how the system is set up.
Some OEMs even advertise the complexity of their cars- like that Audi ad where he owner can't decide what color to have theirs show.
Back when I tracked my Datsun 1200, one time I was checking the car out between sessions and noticed an enormous 1/2" x 4" AN bolt stuck inside a headlight. That cost about $20 to fix at the time, though what was more memorable was wondering what car managed to drop such an enormous bolt and keep going - or maybe they didn't.
In reply to kb58 :
Sealed beams are the Chevy 350 of the headlight world... tough, dirt cheap, and functional.
It's funny this pops up now. I was having a conversation with a coworker about her late-model Durango this morning. She told me that recently, one of the LED strips in one of the headlights went out and the dealer quoted her $4k to replace the assembly. Her car was about 500mi out of warranty. She lost it on them until they caved and did a "good will" coverage of the parts and labor. Car has about 38k on it. She should not have had to do that.
This trend is both troubling and asinine. Component parts like headlights should be easily serviceable by the consumer, period. I feel like my dad when I say this: new cars are dumb and have gotten too fancy, and they don't make them like they used to.
alfadriver said:In reply to Keith Tanner :
Ok.
But I guess I should not remind people if they want to have some say in what is in new cars, they need to buy new cars. Ford and other OEM's do what they do because people pay for it in new cars. Can't really blame them for trying to make as much money as possible- that's how the system is set up.
Some OEMs even advertise the complexity of their cars- like that Audi ad where he owner can't decide what color to have theirs show.
This sounds like a chicken or egg problem. People can't have some say in new cars because they can't afford to buy new cars with the stuff they don't want, but they can't say so because they haven't bought the new car they can't afford with the expensive parts they don't want.
Automakers don't care about what happens to the used car market. Making used cars less affordable is actually in the manufacturer's financial interest (because it increases new car sales).
They also don't have to worry about increased insurance rates because it doesn't affect their new sales in the showrooms.
SV reX said:alfadriver said:In reply to Keith Tanner :
Ok.
But I guess I should not remind people if they want to have some say in what is in new cars, they need to buy new cars. Ford and other OEM's do what they do because people pay for it in new cars. Can't really blame them for trying to make as much money as possible- that's how the system is set up.
Some OEMs even advertise the complexity of their cars- like that Audi ad where he owner can't decide what color to have theirs show.
This sounds like a chicken or egg problem. People can't have some say in new cars because they can't afford to buy new cars with the stuff they don't want, but they can't say so because they haven't bought the new car they can't afford with the expensive parts they don't want.
To be fair, it's taken a few decades of a lot enthusiasts saying "I won't buy new cars" to get to where we are now. It's not like this happened overnight.
<input type=Snarky rant>
It is almost as if these companies are .... PROFIT DRIVEN!!!
Every thing they do is designed to extract money from the consumer. Why is anyone surprised by any of this?
With their volume and production capacity, any of these headlight units costs pennies to produce, but raise the price of the vehicle much more. Making them prohibitively expensive to replace means either we pay the high costs or replace the whole car. Win for them either way.
Why did we get forced into SUVs,trucks and crossovers? Because they are more profitable for the makers.
Why is Carplay/Android auto a $400 add on to the price of a new Jetta when it is literally a piece of software added to the existing hardware?
In summary, it is not the business of auto makers to produce what consumers want or need. It is their business to make money so they do this kind of stuff.
Oh, let me tell you what this insurance adjuster thinks. 
Lifespan/normal 'breakage' of headlamps wasn't that much of a thing until you got into the self-leveling BS and now LED strips. Those LEDs can fail at any time, and replacement of the entire light is the only option. Or, the seal between the lens and the housing will go bad, allowing moisture to get in.
They also make the mounting points out of the thinnest, guaranteed-to-break plastic, so that any minor bump or impact with a housefly will cause them to snap.
I just did a claim on a 88 year old guy's KIA suv that was just for the headlamp. $1200 for the part alone. You have to remove the bumper to replace the stupid thing. This is an old man on a fixed income who bought (what he thought) was an inexpensive vehicle that should be affordable to repair. He was pissed that he had to make a claim for a headlight.
Lastly, because of all the CANBUS integrated baloney a lot of aftermarket headlamps simply won't work when plugged into some cars. The computer won't recognize them. So we (the insurer) are forced to buy an OEM unit.
ETA: oh, let's not forget that mfr's have figured out if they put their logo (or a shadow illustration of a Jeep) on the lens, we insurers will probably be forced to buy the OEM unit.
The prices to fix cars has skyrocketed in the last ten years. I've never seen anything like it in my 30 years doing this. Add me to the list of people who hate all new cars and will do anything I can to keep driving my old stuff.
In reply to ddavidv :
💯!
SV reX said:They also don't have to worry about increased insurance rates because it doesn't affect their new sales in the showrooms.
I'm not sure that is entirely true. A new car buyer "should" take into account the insurance cost of a new vehicle into their budget. I know many don't, but I've also heard friends complain about sticker-shock when they add their new car to their policy and get the first bill.
If new car sales start dropping because buyers can't afford to insure them, maybe manufacturers will start making cars less expensive to insure. Maybe...
The taillights on my wife's X3 are LED. They only come that way if you get the xenon headlights. I found this out when I had "a bulb out" on 3 of the 4 lights across the back. Sorry, no "bulb" replacement. Outer units run about $400 a side and the tailgate mounted ones are $225 a side.
Luckily there a lot of techie nerds that own BMW's and someone figured out it is the LED drivers that crap out. I found aftermarket drivers designed for the problem, 4 for $35. I replaced all 4 drivers in about 45 min.
Trent said:Why did we get forced into SUVs,trucks and crossovers? Because they are more profitable for the makers.
No. You got forced into SUVs, trucks, and crossovers because A) that's what the market demanded and B) government regulations were set up to make them cheaper to manufacture and thus cheaper to sell. Auto manufacturers don't really care if their customers buy cars or trucks, they build what sells.
Used car buyers are not the manufacturer's customer. Hell, NEW car buyers are only their customer at a secondary level -- the real customers are the dealer new car purchasing managers.
It should be criminal that in this day and age, cars can't withstand a 5 mph tap AND protect the occupants in a 50 mph wreck. I do not believe the lame story that protection from a 5 mph tap makes the cars too stiff. They also don't have to be ugly doing so.
SV reX said:Automakers don't care about what happens to the used car market. Making used cars less affordable is actually in the manufacturer's financial interest (because it increases new car sales).
They also don't have to worry about increased insurance rates because it doesn't affect their new sales in the showrooms.
There was a C&D article a long ways back about how automakers were working with insurance companies to reduce claims expenses. Things like cooling system modules instead of discrete components in the nose, reduces labor costs dramatically. Most cars have no key operation on the passenger side as an antitheft measure, fewer avenues of entry. Lock mechanisms use cables or are purely electric instead of using easily-jimmied rods. (Most Japanese cars from the 80s and earlier can be unlocked with a screwdriver faster than using a key... after reading the article, and thinking a little, I tried it and they were right)
Hi tech trickled down to the cheap seats, but it didn't get cheap on the way. What ever was wrong with a cheap plastic housing and $15 H7 bulb?
In reply to Gearheadotaku (Forum Supporter) :
I dunno, what was wrong with sealed beams?
My 2006 car has HIDs. My 1981 car has the original sealed beams. The sealed beams work better. There's no bright spot on the road to kill your night vision when you are trying to watch the horizon.
The best aero headlights I ever had were in my A2 Golf. They didn't light up the road at all. But you could actually see where you were going because of it. I don't care about seeing the road, I'm not worried about dodging the road, I am worried about deer and people walking and stuff.
One very nice thing about the 2006... being Swedish, it has glass lenses. Which are designed to be replaceable, because gravel roads in Scandinavia.
ddavidv said:.....The prices to fix cars has skyrocketed in the last ten years. I've never seen anything like it in my 30 years doing this. Add me to the list of people who hate all new cars and will do anything I can to keep driving my old stuff.
A body shop guy (son of the original owner) said his dad recently sold the shop because repairing most cars is requiring all sorts of special equipment and training (e.g. a small dent in a door requires re-aligning the auto-stop feature!). This of course only increases the cost of the repairs.... which of course only increases the cost of insurance.
BTW I don't really think bright headlights lead to better safety in most cases. Most humans are aware of the limits of what they are operating (it's when you surprise them where the real problem is), and if you let them see the road better, they will just drive faster. Drive around a car with bad brakes, or super dim headlights at night, and see how fast you drive! As noted, in a surprise situation, it can help (you can see the moose farther down the road), but for everyday driving, they can make things worse.
If you want people to drive safe, you want them scared, not comfortable, but that is really bad for sales. Make them feel as invincible and isolated as possible... unintended consequences.
In addition to cost and complexity, don't the CanBus headlights provide a pathway for thieves to bypass security? I seem to recall a thread on here about that.
Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:SV reX said:They also don't have to worry about increased insurance rates because it doesn't affect their new sales in the showrooms.
I'm not sure that is entirely true. A new car buyer "should" take into account the insurance cost of a new vehicle into their budget. I know many don't, but I've also heard friends complain about sticker-shock when they add their new car to their policy and get the first bill.
If new car sales start dropping because buyers can't afford to insure them, maybe manufacturers will start making cars less expensive to insure. Maybe...
Of course they SHOULD.
They don't. It literally doesn't affect the manufacturers in the slightest.
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