Condensation in 430 headlamp

I've seen it on a number of 430's including mine, I just ignore it.

John.

 

My guess is that they don't do all that much testing in the wet for these kind of things. They might drive the car and see how the water drains from the engine bay and how the car reacts to wet surfaces, but the headlights were probably just an oversight.

 

Common problem in these cars. If the car is under warranty they will replace it.

 

Common problem on F430's, I have it on mine and ignore it.

You can raise a warranty claim if your F430 is still under warranty.

 

Sad that this is still ongoing all these years later. I really believed this had been fixed on the F430. Guess not.

I remember a good few years now (probably closer to a decade actually!! lol) ago walking into a Ferrari main dealership service area in the UK and going 'around the back' where all the customer cars where parked.

To my horror I saw a guy whom worked for the said dealership taking tens of 360 headlamps in all different colors and literally smashing them up and throwing them into a skip!

I went over and asked the said gentleman what the heck he was up to and WHY was he smashing up these very expensive headlight units. Apparently he'd been told to because they where deemed 'unsafe'. They where the first generation '99 spec car headlights and the lens could act as a magnifying glass and set the headlight on fire in very hot conditions! Ferrari apparently revised the unit to stop the fires.

I winced, I even offered to buy them off him, heck just the unscratched perspex covers would have come in handy even if the back of the unit was unusable but they where not allowed to. They must be destroyed came back the message. Shame...

 

You can ignore it or fix it but after the fact it will show moisture stains.

Remove the front inner wheel well liner and look for the "Draft Tube" under the light. When the front bumper is installed it is easy to kink this tube where it points forward and gets ram effect road debris or moisture. When properly hanging in the air stream it draws a vacuum in the light and this doesnt happen.

 

Well I have not seen this on my 430.

The condensation is water in liquid and/or vapor state. To remove water from a vessel, you can theoretically circulate dry air at a high enough temperature to promote evaporation. If it were my headlight I might try a Graco 2900 LPHV (Low Pressure, High Volume) paint gun turbine [New $110, reconditioned $50]. It has a 1" hose that has "slightly" hot air coming out of it at low pressure. i would use only the turbine and hose, not the paint gun. Then I might remove the outer-most bulb socket (5w) that lights up the outer angel eye strip. Then pump the warm air into this bulb-socket until the condensation is gone.

The air is not hot enough to adversely affect anything, and the air is nice and dry.

If this happens to me I will give it a try and let everyone know how it goes.
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Thats the extent of it. Let Bernoulli do all the work.