There's a postscript to this story. The other night I was cleaning the usual winter crap off the headlights and noticed the driver's side bulb had gone black. Deep black. I turned them on and checked and it lit up. I checked the other side and it was black too but still operational. About a year ago I had put in Philips extra output (normal wattage) bulbs. The bulbs must have blackened gradually, as it took me a while to figure out something was wrong.

I still had the OEM bulbs as spares and I put them back in. The lighting is about 1000% better already, even stock I can see great on the high beams now. I hadn't noticed earlier as the usual way for me to check if my lights are OK are to switch them on and look; a couple of times I did this thinking I might have had a blown bulb but both lit. The glass had just gone opaque for some odd reason. I dunno if this is a factory defect. In any case I can see "normal" now, as good as my wife's Odyssey.

Weird...

PlaneCrazy
'02 Accord SE
'98 Odyssey
'76 Piper Cherokee 140E, IFR-certified