Before I call CarTalk, I'd like some brainstorming ideas.

- 1995 Oldsmobile Achieva owned by Vixy.

- Car *HAS* been taken to the local Olds dealership in an attempt to solve the problem, they just replace the burned out bulbs and don't find anything else wrong.

- Bulbs keep burning out extremely fast. Prior times it took on the order of weeks or a couple of months. But the last time, both bulbs stopped working almost immediately: Replaced bulbs, they worked long enough to look and see that they were working, then the car was moved into and out of a driveway the next day, then when we went to move it back into the driveway the third day, both bulbs were burned out again. No long-term use, and bam, they're bad again.

- Ruled out general case of bad bulbs, because they are burning out simultaneously each time. And this has gone through multiple repeats of the issue, with different amounts of time between each one.

- Bulbs are halogens. They are the kind where you have both the low and the high beam contained within the same actual bulb itself. When you look at the bulbs in a cursory fashion, they don't look particularly bad. But when you look very close, you can see the difference between the highbeam filament which looks fine, and the low beam filament which looks blobby and slightly melty (but not blackend per se).

- Vixy thinks but cannot confirm for sure that the lowbeam burnouts are somehow related to the highbeam usage. For example, they worked fine for a few months until she turned on the high beams and then she noticed they were out. However she can't be sure; she concedes that the last time she might have turned on the high beams because the low beam bulbs were already burned out and she was just trying to make it brighter.

- High beams always work fine and do not burn out. Only the low beam filaments in the same bulbs burn out.

- Clearly there is some kind of an electrical problem, but where to start looking? There are perfectly good fuses in the proper places and of the proper ratings.

Ideas?

Diagnostic questions and tests welcomed: Between me and Vixy, we'll try them out and perhaps narrow down the issue.