Odd one today, blown Philips 9007

[N8N]

I replaced this bulbs in a friend's vehicle (Nissan Xterra) not more than two months ago... she failed safety today because "a headlight was out" and "the headlights were too oxidised."

So I took the grille and headlight surrounds off, polished up the lights, warned her that it was a temporary fix, and waved a spray can at all the (badly weathered) plastic to make it all one color again (since I had to take it off anyway to do a decent looking job of polishing.) Then I started on the headlight... removed the bulb, looks perfect, got out the meter, fuses good, relay good, power and ground at socket... light does not light on low or high and meters bad. Still don't see a fault on the light. Put new bulb in, works.

Is Philips losing it, is this indicative of some kind of odd failure mode (excessive vibration?) or did she just get a bad bulb and not to worry overmuch?

 

[HotWire]

Bulbs fail when we least expect it. I usually replace both bulbs (driver/passenger) when 1 is needed. I use Phillips bulbs.

 

[N8N]

yeah it just seems odd that it is practically brand new (filaments look new, not furry at all) and I still can't figure out exactly what the failure was... by inspection everything looks great, can see all connections, just doesn't work...? I played with it some more and there actually is continuity from low to high but not low to ground or high to ground, so I guess it was a bad connection between the ground connection within the globe and the ground pin on the connector... eh, I'll chalk it up to "that was weird" and move on.