New to Audi about a week ago and lovin' it! Reminds me of how much I loved (and miss) my 1985 Merkur XR4Ti *sigh*

Got me 2006 A6 Avant (C6) with 123K miles on it, including the adaptive headlight system. Put it through Maryland state (USA) inspection and was told the headlights "don't have enough candlepower." Hmmmm, he said. The spec says there needs to be 3500cp; my left headlight has 0cp and the right one has 3000cp. Again, he said hmmmmm.

So I looked up the definition of the term, it appears that's a way to measure how much light coming from a particular source is focused on the target. [It's also no longer used, having been replaced by the term candela.]

Could this be a simple alignment problem, or do I need to replace the bulbs? And once the bulbs are replaced, do they need to be realigned? This thing has some of the best night lighting I've ever seen (even better than the Merkur!), so I find it really hard to believe that one has 0cp. I can live with 3000cp, but zero?! Once more ... hmmmmm ...

I will be purchasing a VAG-COM with a dedicated laptop to run it, but I don't have it yet (and Ross-Tech is closed until next year), so I guess I'll have to suck it up at the local dealer - at least this time.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

you probably just need to replace the bulbs, with HID the light output, lumens, deteriorates over time.

One of the ballasts can be bad too. I'd advise to take the route to order a pair of high quality HID bulbs from The Retrofit Source Inc

Always replace in pairs or you will get a mismatch. If you are D2S a pair will be about 50 bucks.

 

Looks like they were out of mechanical adjustment, but while the guy was adjusting them the one light went dim.

All in adjustment now, with a new bulb, and ready to go!