Time to revisit this theme as I’ve just done battle with one of these bastards.

What were they thinking when they thought that this was a better idea than previous designs?

I just object to the fact that they tend to stop working far more frequently than the other type.

I’ve replaced mine with led bulbs, cheaper to run and purportedly last a lot longer. You can get a little sucker thing for 50p to twist em in and out of the holder

Can’t get the LED ones to go in some of my fittings. That makes me even more angry than changing the halogen ones.

Weird the LED ones I have are exactly the same profile as the incandescent ones I have.

There must be a micron difference as they won’t go in my kitchen fittings. Fine elsewhere round the house once you get past the blind alignment design fault.

Modern car light bulbs.

/thread

HtS, Easiest way to deal with them is to remove the whole light fitting. Take it outside and then smash the living crap out of it with the biggest hammer you can find. Then pop out to get a new light fitting that takes easy to fit bulbs

But flashy, truly modern car lights are maintenance free sealed units and won’t need changing will cost a fortune for a main dealer to fix instead of a few quid and a fresh manicure after fighting with the inaccessible spring clips from hell

There must be a micron difference as they won’t go in my kitchen fittings. Fine elsewhere round the house once you get past the blind alignment design fault.

Same situation here. They fit in six put of the eight fittings in my kitchen. Fittings all purchased at the same time from the same supplier, out of the same box and fitted by the same electrician. Bulbs from the same box of 10.

Flashy – it’s not the car bulbs, it’s the fact you need to go in through the wheel arch and be triple jointed with X-ray vision to accurately change them.

Not just me then. Coupled with the stupid design of the shades in my kitchen that allow zero purchase on the rim of the bulb.

@gwaelod – any links to sucker gadget?

These things are much more annoying than the GU10 fittings. Replacing a fluourescent tube with an LED one involved a lot of angry shouting before it eventually capitulated.

Either the entire fitting pops out and is left dangling from the its wires, or it only makes contact at the wrong angle, or it just doesn’t work because it hates you.

Although car headlight fittings are evil.

Go relamp some telephone lamps on a 60’s era alarm panel then come back to me with your “problems”.

Right voltage? Check
Got the rubber tube? Check
Got the fascia sucker? Check
Pull the fascia off? Nope
Got screwdriver? Check
Attack fascia cover, remove three others to eventually get the one you’re after? Check
Unsrew old lamp? Nope
Fight with it for ten minutes? Check
Eventually get it out after detching the mountings? Check
Put new one in? Nope
Reattach mountings several times whilst shredding fingers on stupid flares? Check
Lamp in? Check
Reattach fascia covers? Nope
“Fix” broken fascia cover? Check
All back together? Check
Rinse and repeat
Hope you don’t blow a panel fuse.

+1 to the car bulb replacing contortion act I have to go through.
Taps with cartridge valves, almost impossible to find the correct replacement. Having replaced all of mine in the house (6 pairs) I make sure I sort out the spares at point of sale, no spares or easily orderable? no thanks.
Saucepans with a single screw to hold on the handle. Bought a set for our first home, youthful mistake, never again.

mine came with a sucker thing to put them in to tight housings
not sure why, cos most sucker things suck at the best of times iykwim.

E14/E27 screw thread are far superior imho, in more ways than one.

car lights are easy (RH side), pita that needs 2 bits of plastic protection for radiator hoses removing (LH side), virtually impossible (indicators), although Seat indicators fortunately have a “feature” where you usually only need to wiggle the connector to make them work again, and it’s not usually the bulb that’s blown.

Mk3 Mondeo TDCi Aux tensioner.

**** thing.

205 gti clock light.
the most stupid idea ever, requires most of the dash to be removed to replace it

1.Remove the coin compartment or cover, open and lift up the bottom edge
2. Pull off the heater knobs, wrap them in a cloth and use a pair of pliers so they’re not damaged.
3. Remove the screws underneath the switch panel, take off the upper plastic
4. Take out the ashtray
5. Unclip the clock surround and take it off
6. Remove the radio (just pull it out if the cables are long enough)
7. Remove the screws and pull the lower plastic off by pulling the bottom edge
8. Take off the wiring plug and pull off the clock
9. Replace bulb

Lol, g9 halogens are a pain sometimes too.

We are down to just one in our light fitting in our rental, as there is simply no room to get your fingers in to pull the bastard things out.

I havd ordered some rubber hose in the hope i can push that over and it will grip enough, if that fails, new light fitting with non bastard bulbs

One of the pins got snapped off one of my folk’s G10 and stuck in the fitting the other day. Had to take the whole thing down and struggle getting the pin head out which was wedged in tight. Manufacturing tolerance issue it seems. Probably got hammered in to fit.

Not keen on these spot strip kitchen lights with G10s in them. Got one myself but it’s a git to get light where you want and not create shadows. What was wrong with the old fluorescent tubes? (apart from not always lighting 😀 )

The florrie tube holder rotates…just in case you have been doing it wrong for 30 years like a colleague of mine I enlightened once. Poor guy. heheheh!

Lotus Esprit wiper motor – either dismantle complete dash (whole day job) or cut the glass fibre from outside and make good/respray.

These things are much more annoying than the GU10 fittings. Replacing a fluourescent tube with an LED one involved a lot of angry shouting before it eventually capitulated.

Amen to this. Aggravated by the fact that the tubes for the original fitting don’t exist any more and the replacements are narrower with almost-but-not-quite-the-same pins and it’s Grr Argh when you’re replacing a near-2m strip on your own. It’s a bit like Mr Miyagi trying to catch flies with a lightsaber.

Flashy – it’s not the car bulbs, it’s the fact you need to go in through the wheel arch and be triple jointed with X-ray vision to accurately change them.

It is the bulbs too – a tail light and a stop and tail light will fit in the same fitting. A stop and tail lamp can also go back to front in the fitting so that the brake filament operates when the tail one should and vice versa. Then all sorts of nonsense starts -with my motor if the stop/ tail bulb is fitted incorrectly then, while the brake pedal is pressed, you can turn off the ignition and take the keys out and the engine will keep running.

The washer bottle on the other halfs fabia is one of my favourites, the wheel arch has a guard in it to shield all things inside. This has in excess of 20 Dzus type fasteners which need to come off. Replace hose. Replace all 20+ fasteners. To replace hose 5 seconds, to get to it 15 minutes and 15 to replace

The LED bulbs do seem to last a lot better. I had to replace all 8 of my kitchen Halogens within the first year of having them, but none of the LED ones have died yet (18 months on). They are a massive PITA to fit though.

It is the bulbs too – a tail light and a stop and tail light will fit in the same fitting. A stop and tail lamp can also go back to front in the fitting so that the brake filament operates when the tail one should and vice versa.

Have things changed in recent years? The last time I changed a stop/tail light, it was a bayonet fitting with the two sticky-out pins (technical term) at different heights on the casing. So you could only fit the correct bulbs one way unless you strong-armed them in. Are modern ones not like that?

Brother was telling me about a Lotus he’d seen with an auxiliary starter battery located in the passenger footwell.

When asked why the guy needed a racing battery, he said, well the car is 20yrs old, and replacing the original battery ….. is a body off job! 😯

The old GU10 fittings in my kitchen had an extra pin in the middle to prevent you using normal bulbs – I think the fitting was designed for low power compact fluorescent bulbs. Took me ages to figure out why the replacement LEDs wouldn’t fit.

Toyota GT86 and Subaru BRZ – engine out to change the spark plugs.

tonyplym – Member
Toyota GT86 and Subaru BRZ – engine out to change the spark plugs.

Really? That’s retarded in the extreme.

The rubber sucker cup removal tool is available on eBay, search for gu10 sucker.

do the LED ones just directly replace halogens? no need for any kind of adapter or anything? obviously assuming that they’ll go in the fittings, of course…
one of the ones in my kitchen died a few months ago and i managed to snap off one of the pins while removing it. inside the fitting. that was a fun time. came out eventually though.

gu10 sucker

That’s what the man in the lighting department of B&Q calls me

GU10 suction cups they’re as pointless as a power link removal tool.

Have things changed in recent years? The last time I changed a stop/tail light, it was a bayonet fitting with the two sticky-out pins (technical term) at different heights on the casing. So you could only fit the correct bulbs one way unless you strong-armed them in. Are modern ones not like that?

Thats correct – but they’ll go in wrong quite happily (and work, all be it incorrectly) without being strong armed as the bulb holder is pretty flimsy. A single filament will also go into a double filament bulb holder and also operate.

do the LED ones just directly replace halogens? no need for any kind of adapter or anything?

Yes. Make sure to replace 240V halogens with 240V LEDs, or 12V with 12V obviously. I think I’ve generally used 5-6W LED GU10s.

Then all sorts of nonsense starts -with my motor if the stop/ tail bulb is fitted incorrectly then, while the brake pedal is pressed, you can turn off the ignition and take the keys out and the engine will keep running.

You stole your Nova using the hazard switch and I claim my £5 bounty.

As for the GT86, it’s a Subaru engine, when did practical ever come into it?

I’m diagreeing with people again

E14/E27 screw thread are far superior imho, in more ways than one.

Although screw threads can come loose in time. Not such an issue with LEDs but the heat/cool cycle of incandescents used to make them fairly unreliable.

Not as bad as good old bayonet cap – yes, a fragile piece of glass that when broken leaves unprotected live connection and nothing but a piece of thin glass to try to push and turn to remove.

Compared to both of those I’d take a GU10 any day – I’ve never had any trouble with them. The LED bulbs I’m putting in are meant to have a 25 year life so I should never need to find out anyway. One did fail after 3 hours but hopefully that’s the exception.

A mate who is a Bentley trained mechanic said that to change the starter motor (which apparently is a common fault) on most of their range for the last 10 yrs or so costs about £6k for a £150 part because the engine has to be removed to do it.