Dave,

You may indeed be paranoid. But you will have to find another subject obsess over. Once you replace the old socket assemblies you most likely will not run into the problem again. For additional piece of mind you could buy a heavier duty replacement bulb (through IPD) to go along with your new sockets... this might be over-kill.

My sockets failed within one week of another at 12K miles. Both bulb and socket were replaced in each case. To date, I have not had a bulb or socket failure and the car now has 49K miles on it.

OK, I give you something to stress over... if you have your headlights on all the time (daylight running lights) you can expect to get about 20K miles before the bulbs burn out. Instructions on how to by-pass the DRL feature are in your owners manual. I drive on a lot of rural two-lane roads and think the price of a headlight bulb is worth avoiding a head-on.

The high beam and low beam bulbs are interchangeable so if you get caught out and about with one eye, you can rob peter to pay paul until you get to a parts store for a replacement.

Happy trails,