I work in the automotive trade looking after nearly every contract you can think of and have supplied parts to every vehicle maker in europe and this has been a big problem with new cars for some time. The garages have been taking all the big manufacturers for a ride as every time you take your car for a service during the 3 year warranty they say it needs a bulb and the car makers have to pick up the costs.
I had until very recently the Hella lighting contract on site supplying the lights for Jag cars at castle brom. The dealers were charging Jag £85 everytime a bulb had to be replaced in turn Jag would pass this back to Hella to re-coup some of the money.
Hella realsied this was some sort of con so have invested in making future headlamps which will use LED's, they last a minmum of 10 years and thus stops the greedy little garages chipping into their profits ?
Great for us too as we no longer have to fiddle around to change a bulb
