Last night when I went to bed the xenons worked great. When I got up and went to work this morning, they were still great. I checked them before I left the parking lot after work, and they were fine. But when I get home tonight, what do I find? The passenger side bulb is burned out!
So this gets me to thinking... what if the problem is only on the passenger side? But that makes no sense because the LEDs didn't work on either side right? And then it dawns on me... there were two different symptoms with the LEDs. The passenger side was flashing, which everyone agreed means that the LEDs are nearly toast. But the driver side bulb was just dim, and it instantly brightened when I reversed the wedge in the base. At the time I thought the flashing LED on the passenger side might be a connection issue, so I switched the two to see if the other LED would flash. Although it worked fine at first, after leaving the lights on for awhile the second LED (now installed in the passenger lamp) started flashing as well.
At this point everything I have installed (besides the OEM bulb) in the passenger lamp has burned up. (That's two LEDs, one xenon bulb, and $27 for those counting.) So I figured while I'm throwing money away, I'll swap the Malibu's through to try and burn one of those out as well. If the Malibu's burn up I think it's reasonable to conclude that something else is going on.
What do you guys think? Is it possible that the socket is just too "hot" (voltage not heat) for the bulb? What would you even do to fix something like this?
P.S. Take a look at the comparison chart I posted; you can see the passenger side bulb burning more brightly in a few of those pics.