this week I bought a 2001 X Type , 2.5 litre Petrol

When the headlights are on dip, only the two lights nearest to the Grille are on, then on full beam, all 4 are going
The lights are not very strong when dipped

Is this normal or do I have blown bulbs on the outer lights

 

Hi. On my 2009 X type the dipped beams are the outer ones. The problem of poor dipped beams is covered on a few posts on here.

 

Faberman, the first thing we need to know is whether your car is equipped with HID bulbs or halogen bulbs. The easiest way to figure this out is by looking in the door hinge of the driver's door. There should be a silver/white sticker there talking about "vehicle equipped with High Intensity Discharge (HID) bulbs ......" If you have this, then you have HID bulbs. If not, odds are, you have standard halogen bulbs. These bulbs have totally different characteristics. The other quick check is to park the car facing a wall. Now, turn on your headlights. Do they snap on to full brightness and stay there or do they come on, dim down, then over the course of a few seconds come back to full brightness. If they snap on and stay, you have halogen bulbs. If they are bright, dim, then get bright again, you have HID bulbs.

Any bulb after use will start to dim. So, your problem can very easily be just old bulbs. If you have halogen bulbs, you need an H1 bulb. If you have HID bulbs, then you will need a "D2S" bulb. If you are going after a D2S bulb, you will also have the option of what color light you want the bulb to emit. Factory was 4300K. But, this light is a little on the yellow side. If you are after a more pure white light, then you are going to want to find either a "5000K" or "6000K" bulb.

What DUNKS was referring to is that this is a common problem with the X-Type. The problem is going to show itself in 2 ways. The first way only affects the halogen (H1) bulbs in that the wire terminals to the bulb get excessively hot (due to the heat the bulb generates) and this causes the terminals to develop a high resistance. This leads to even more heat and a power reduction to the bulb (making the bulb dim).

The second problem is that the internals of the headlight break due to the plastic getting brittle with age. A quick check is to park near a wall and see if the headlights shine on the wall directly in front if you. If you find that they do, then your lens mounts are fine (but, be careful when you replace the bulbs as this is a likely time that they are going to break). If you find that your headlights are either pointing up way too high or way too low, then this would be a sign that those mounts are broken and you will need to replace them (or buy new headlight housings). there are Youtube videos on how to replace the mounts. Not a tough job, but not something that you are going to get done in a few minutes either.

 

thanks for the great advice

Looks like it could be a major wiring issue, the inside lights are the only ones working on Dip. I have checked that the wires are not on the wrong way, but after checking I see there is a loom, so it is not possible to have the wires the wrong way around

Was totally unaware that bulbs can fade, I thought they worked or the didn't,
so that is another issue that needs to be looked into

Was hoping for something simple that I (far from a good mechanic) would be able to fix

Really appreciate your imput as it has helped a lot