[PeteS]

Finnish car magazine Tekniikan Maailma gave a very positive review this week but reported possible quality problems with xenon headlights. A rough translation:

“We measured the light output of xenon lights and results were not at all as expected. They were so bad that the matter required further clarification as Volvo’s well-known for its good xenon lights.

We contacted the distributor and they contacted the manufacturer. The difference between our and Volvos measurements suggests that this is a manufacturing quality problem instead of a design problem. Headlights have an important safety function and Volvo is unlikely to want their safety engineering effort to be wasted due to poor lights. We’ll investigate the matter further and come back to it as soon as possible.”

 

[mrlazy]

Do you have a link to the article Pete ?

 

[PeteS]

Do you have a link to the article Pete ?

You have to pay to read the article online: http://tekniikanmaailma.fi/arkisto/lehtiarkisto?HaeNumero2=true&year=0&number=x.

 

[GusGecko]

Hmmm weird

 

[volvo154]

Hmmm weird

I ordered the bendy lights, will this affect me?

 

[Andytech]

I've ordered them as well. Has there been an update to that article?

 

[GusGecko]

Havnt read or heard anything... But this was written with a test car for one, and any issues with lights etc that would effect the whole v40 fleet would be covered by warranty and could/would be a recall... IF the production line cars are effected.... Surely

 

[PeteS]

I've ordered them as well. Has there been an update to that article?

I couldn’t find any update to the article. Hopefully it was only an isolated problem with their test car.

I’ve been following Finnish and Swedish Volvo forums and people have only made positive comments about the lights (almost everybody orders active xenons due to the long and dark winter up here). Last few weeks have been extremely rainy and dark and I think someone would’ve noticed if something was wrong.

 

[Andytech]

I think Gus hit the nail on the head, so to speak. Safety has always been Volvos' strong point. If there's a problem found with the xenon lights; I'm sure they do a recall.

 

[PeteS]

Finnish car magazine Tekniikan Maailma gave a very positive review this week but reported possible quality problems with xenon headlights. A rough translation:

“We measured the light output of xenon lights and results were not at all as expected. They were so bad that the matter required further clarification as Volvo’s well-known for its good xenon lights.

We contacted the distributor and they contacted the manufacturer. The difference between our and Volvos measurements suggests that this is a manufacturing quality problem instead of a design problem. Headlights have an important safety function and Volvo is unlikely to want their safety engineering effort to be wasted due to poor lights. We’ll investigate the matter further and come back to it as soon as possible.”

Now there was an update to this article. The explanation is quite technical and I’m having a hard time trying to translate it but the main point is that the light manufacturer (ZKW from Austria) has admitted there's been a problem in early production. The matter has been fixed in production from week 34 onwards. (I get the impression that not necessarily all lights in early production are faulty.) If a customer finds that the lights are faulty, they are naturally replaced under warranty. If someone's interested I can try to translate the technical explanation.

I’ve had a few opportunities to test my lights and there's definitely nothing wrong with them (production week 37 or 38). I’ve never liked night driving but these great lights are going to make it much more bearable.