Smart cars are an absolute mennis! Supposed to be a bumper off job
Pop the little grills on the top off, you can just with a bit of pain, get your hand down and replace them.
Totally agree about most modern lighting to be a nightmare, it's no wonder so many people drive around with lights out. The other thing see a fair bit of, is people who have fitted the bulb but misaligned it in the actual lamp unit, leading to a very incorrect and ineffective head lamp pattern.
Used to have a VW Bora, all it said in the manual under headlamp bulb replacement was "take your car to the dealer"
After a bit of faffing it took me 20 minutes
trail_rat - MemberYay so you too can join the hoards of the ignorant who think its ok to drive around with one headlight till next service,
Not neccesarily that tbh, I've no idea how long I drove mine around for with one headlight, one good modern headlight lights the road better than 2 used to. Took me about 2 minutes to change it once I found out (though, Ford say a bunch of stuff has to come out to change it, including the battery, that turned out to be bollocks.)
Not just cars. My old Hyosungs, both the 125 and 250r either required infant sized hands or to remove the clocks, all the front fairing just to access the headlight unit.
Suzuki GSR 600 two bolts and in simple. Honda cbf 125 side panels off and lose knuckle skin .
SV650S, spring clip and out, took longer to open the bulb packet
If our clio loses a bulb that gets done by mrs g.(she has small hands and a lot more patience) I can do it in about 20mins with adapted tools, mirrors bluetack and head torch and a lot of swearing. The designers have done well to cram so much into a small space but FFS there should be a law against it. ok if it is a change once in the cars lifespan item but a bulb...
Crikey. I just changed my headlight bulbs today and cursed the lack of access. Or so I thought. Took about 3 minutes. After reading this thread, it seems my cursing was not warranted.
Feel free to flame away, but it'd never even occur to me to change a light bulb myself!! I'd just take it straight to the local garage to get done! Maybe I've been lucky but across the 3 cars that I've owned over the last 10 years it's always been less than 5 minutes and £5. They are friends though, so maybe I'm getting a mates rate? I'd didn't think that I did!
If you are in the AA or RAC just call them out and they'll fit them for free (if you have the bulb. If you haven't got one they carry them on the van and only charge about £8 for a headlight bulb).
Call in on an evening when you are at home, drink tea and let someone else do all the hard work. No need to deal with the monkeys a halfords.
Cant remember the last time i blew a bulb.
I hada rear light go out in france but it was a dodgy contact. Just bent it back into contact with the leatherman.
One of the dip headlights went out on the landy but this was a fuse.- they are fused per side and that caused me some confusion.
Obviously ive just cursed this and will blow several bulbs now 🙂
Bulbs mostly seem to go when being MoT'd.
As mentioned earlier, Mk3 Mondeo very easy, just a couple of pegs holding the units in.
Bulbs mostly seem to [s]go[/s]be noticed when being MoT'd.
EFA
Still the biggest causes of mot failures, and it's something everyone could do before they present the vehicle.
timber - MemberAs mentioned earlier, Mk3 Mondeo very easy, just a couple of pegs holding the units in.
It's quite clever that- bulbs are hard to change when you cna't get to the back of the headlight, so let's move the headlight
