Having had the C4 for 6 months without any major dramas, suddenly little niggling problems are starting to appear. Perhaps it’s just the end of life of some for a the parts or it could it even be some dodgy or sub standard service work from the mechanic who serviced it last. Anyway, the first problem that came up prior to the major service @ (40K KM’s) is that the driver side dipped headlamp bulb died which I had replaced. Not long after that, the passenger side went as well and I regretted not having them replaced at the same time. So off to the mechanics I go to have it replaced, it wasn’t much of an issue and I wasn’t charged an arm and a leg for it. It’s just a bulb after all. Honestly, I was more concerned that there may have been an electrical issue with the car which causes the bulbs to fail.
After having the two bulbs replaced about six weeks ago, I got in the car last night only to find out that the driver side bulb wasn’t working again. I was a little apprehensive when it comes to fiddling around with it myself due to the fact that the last time I had look at it, I lost the rubber cap for the headlamp housing.
I needed to have a look, so with much difficulty and a little help from Donna’s Clinique compact thingy, I managed to remove the dead bulb. On the bright side, I learned the quickest and easiest way to remove it which everyone in the C4 Owners forums have had a hell of a time doing. I did notice that the two bulbs that the mechanic used to replace the dead ones were a different brand, not that it matters I guess, one was Osram H7 55W (mostly recommended by C4 owners) and the other I wasn’t sure about.
I suspected they just grabbed one from a pile and just slapped it in there, now if I had opted to replace them both at the same time, at least maybe they would have used a proper kit. I had a quick browse on the net to look for a decent kit and I found these…Phillips X-treme Power H7 55W.
These bulbs from Phillips claims to be 80% more light on the road and a bunch of other features I don’t really understand.
- Palladium-coated head and chrome-coated base
- Special anti-reflex coating
- Improved geometrical filament design
- New gas composition and adapted pressure
- Quartz glass with new optical finish
If you’ve never changed a bulb on a C4 then it may take you quite a while replacing the two, I found it easier to replace the driver side bulb by removing the coolant cover for easier access, it’s just a matter of popping up the two plastic screws and taking the coolant cap off to remove the plastic shroud.
I haven’t seen what these lamps are capable of since I drove in to work in the afternoon but they’ll get their run tonight surely, it also happens to be raining so it will be interesting to see how they peform under wet conditions. This brings me to the other minor issue we’ve encountered. Wiper Blades!
The original wiper blades installed on this car has somewhat deteriorated over time and the mechanic did mention that he intended to replace them at the next service. Unfortunately it really didn’t last for much longer than that and the squeaking sound was driving me mental. Went over to the C4Owners.Org forums to see what is the recommended replacement apart from the OEM stuff. That’s where I came accross the Bosch Aerotwin Blades, sounds fancy right? A lot of the guys swear by it and is not just the C4 owners, a lot of car forums rave on about these wipers and for $75 a pair, I thought it was reasonable enough to give them a go. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any retailers in Sydney that stocked them, I read somewhere that Autobarn stocked Bosch wipers but the guy I spoke to on the phone had no idea that these blades came in 28″ lengths for the C4 passenger side so I hung up on him and got them off Ebay instead.
Ordered them last saturday and it arrived this afternoon just as I was about to leave for work which was brilliant timing. Took me no more than 10 minutes to install both, fitted in nicely as if it was the original. The C4 take’s a 24″ (600mm) driver side & 28″ (700mm) passenger side, the part number for it is 965S-M. Haven’t tested them under wet conditions but I have feeling I will get to test them tonight as it’s been drizzling outside for the last couple of hours. I did however test it with the washer jets and they worked brilliant under auto. The automatic windscreen wipers had been a little erratic due to the degradation of the wipers but you do get used to it, but under the quick test, I believe it is working as it should be. Another thing I can say about these wipers is that it is very quiet , the blade sits very nicely on the surface of my curved windscreen and there seems to be a more even pressure applied on the entire blade, not just on certain spots. Bosch claims that this improves the service life by 20%, which would make sense when you don’t have one or two specific points on the blade that are being worked harder against the windscreen.
I’ll post a video tonight filmed using my iPhone, hope the quality is not too bad…