Hoen XenonMatch Bulb issue...
 

I bought these bulbs on January 24th, 2007 and after couple months of use removed them and saw that the silver paint on the top of the bulbs have been chipped and fell. Is this the quality I should expect from these bulbs? Any ideas what to do? Thanks guys.

Bump!

Sounds like the "coating" that the bulbs are covered in to give them that color is flaking off with the heat from the bulbs... this seems to be a problem with most colored bulbs. You could try sylvania silverstar ultras as they are a better quality bulb... or dish out the extra $ for real HID's.

Paid $40 and they didn't even last one year. What a sh*tty quality bulbs from Hoen!

Well, sorry about their quality. But I'm glad I and other people get to hear of people having issues like this before dropping the money ourselves. I guess I'm gonna try the silverstar ultras hoping that the sylvanias are properly made.

Wonder if it's worth emailing Hoen's customer support about this quality issue, armed with pics. You might get a set of free bulbs out of them.

I've sent an email to Hoen and will post their respose here.

Try the xenesis tru match as well..so far so good. nothing beats HIDs though..

I'm switching to real HID fogs very soon. got them in the trunk, hopefully installing tomorrow!

Hoen's reply;

"Good morning, if the tip is knicked during install it may start to flake
after a number of heat cycles as its integerity is compromised. However
this does not effect the performance of the bulb.

In a perfect world the lamp housing should be removed for installation of
all bulbs to prevent contact with other objects (as it is done at the
factory) but of course this is not always possible".

regards
Andreas

The bulb glass was never touched and the fog light housing was removed (of course!) before installation. What a cr*ppy product!

crappy reply too.. they are just making excuses. definately try a different brand..

I've had them for about six months now and no issue's...yet (knock on wood) :dunno: