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On Tue, 17 Nov 2015 19:46:07 -0800 (PST), wrote:

On Tuesday, November 17, 2015 at 5:23:04 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Tue, 17 Nov 2015 14:03:57 -0800 (PST), wrote:

My old Audi burned out a headlight, and the stealership wanted $250 to put a new bulb in. I bought the bulb off Amazon for about $50 and did it myself in about 45 minutes. Had to remove the air filter box and air pipe to the intake to get to the back of the headlamp, but it was no big deal.

I am still not sure what was wrong with the old sealed beam. You could
get them with very capable lamps in them just about the time they fell
out of fashion and anyone could swap one out for $5 in a couple
minutes.
I broke a headlight on my Honda and the replacement was over $100 used
and I got a deal. It was a pain to replace too.

The adaptive HID headlights on the newer, upscale cars are far superior to old sealed beams. The replacements you are talking about, I believe, are the housings. The actual bulb is inside and is small compared to an old sealed beam. The housings are expensive, but the bulb inside is small and relatively cheap. The nice sealed beams are a lot more than $5! The good halogen replacements are more like $15-$30. The incandescent bulbs are still $5-$10, but are weak and yellow.

With these new lights the bulb is usually not what goes bad. The lens
gets cloudy, cracks or breaks out. The reflector degrades and the
whole assembly can be hundreds of dollars.
I agree that brand new, they are a whole lot better than a
conventional sealed beam but once the enclosure degrades a bit, they
are worse and your average driver is not going to fix it as long as
the light still comes on.
Sealed beams are either on or off, the reflector is sealed in a
tempered glass can. They don't degrade much.
When you replaced a sealed beam, you got a whole new light.
If the sealed beams were mass marketed items the halogen would be
$5-10.