Rt, I hadn't in mind to retrofit for HID lamps. I find them dazzling and wouldn't like to inflict them on somebody else. I find that the old standby halogen bulbs suit my pottering about style of driving, ie, keeping to speed limits. I did notice when I checked the dipped beam lights before driving over to Buxton last night that there was a noticeable film of road dirt (salt etc) on the lenses and that showed up.

gordonbennet, thanks for the tip. I generally buy bulbs from the dealer because they are, hopefully, makers spec. and tend to last the longest. When my last H7 bulb went I thought that I had a spare in the set that I keep, but all the bulbs were for the earlier model Legacy and didn't suit. So I bought a spare from my favourite garage, make Powertrain, which I was assured was a top spec bulb. I then bought a complete set of spares from the East Cheshire Subaru dealer, including three H7s, meaning to replace the other dipped beam bulb and still have two spares. I didn't get round to doing that, so I now have an 8 year old Subaru bulb in the offside and a new one by Neolux in the nearside.

As I said, I learned long ago that bulbs bought from the high street shops tend to have a short life and so I always, when I can, buy from the dealer. What I intended was to look for compatible LED bulbs because they tend to be more robust and, hopefully, last longer. Changing the bulbs used to be so easy - I did my first for a friend about 1960 - but now the design of car assumes that you have hands as small as Japanese ladies, and that's after taking off the air ducts and moving things about.

According to the Audi website the A1 gets "Halogen Headlights" as standard on SE and Sport

"Xenon plus headlights with LED daytime running lights. Includes automatic headlight adjustment, dynamic range control and headlight washers" is standard on S-line.

Note the inclusion of "automatic headlight adjustment" and "headlight washers"