Evaporated Filament

Today I replaced the headlights in my 2006 Honda Civic EX. As one had burned out I figured it was best to replace them both to ensure matching color. I hadn’t had to replace a headlight bulb yet in this car, and it turns out that to do so one must turn the front wheel and pull back some of the plastic flashing inside the wheel well. This required removing five plastic trim clips, but was otherwise quite easy. It was easier than the headlight assembly removal that I’ve had to do on both Danielle’s car and my old Pontiac Grand Am, with the biggest downside being dirty hands and having to turn the front wheels between sides.

The burnt out 9006 bulb that prompted this work can be seen above. At the bottom of the image the glass bulb housing is clouded with evaporated filament. This part of the bulb is at the top when installed, so when the bulb burnt out the gaseous metal from the gap in the filament condensed on this part of the glass, clouding it in a manner not unlike how mirrored sunglasses are made.