Background
A few years ago with my Mum's previous car the driver side head lamp failed so i had to replace the bulb. What i thought would be a 10-20 minute job turned into a finger slicing back breaking four hour marathon where i discovered that cars are designed to be built but not maintained, which i knew but now got very frustrating personal experience of and that franchised garages do not necessarily do the job to the standard they are supposed to but do still charge for!
The car was hit at the front end during a very bad winter of 2010/2011. A neighbour came round the corner, lost control and skidded on the snow into my mother's car. The front wing and bumper were replaced which required the head lamp to be removed. At some point in this process the bulb securing clip got damaged and as a result the bulb was left in the wrong position and the securing clip was forced into position. A few months later the bulb failed. I replaced the bulb. At the end of the year the car failed its MOT due to the head light being misaligned by quite some margin!
I figured out at this point that when the headlight had been replaced and the bulb was incorrectly installed the headlight was 'correctly' aligned to the legally required position. When i removed the bulb and repaired the securing clip i in effect significantly changed the alignment of the bulb causing it to fail the MOT inspection! So much for using the experts to repair your car.
The car was hit at the front end during a very bad winter of 2010/2011. A neighbour came round the corner, lost control and skidded on the snow into my mother's car. The front wing and bumper were replaced which required the head lamp to be removed. At some point in this process the bulb securing clip got damaged and as a result the bulb was left in the wrong position and the securing clip was forced into position. A few months later the bulb failed. I replaced the bulb. At the end of the year the car failed its MOT due to the head light being misaligned by quite some margin!
I figured out at this point that when the headlight had been replaced and the bulb was incorrectly installed the headlight was 'correctly' aligned to the legally required position. When i removed the bulb and repaired the securing clip i in effect significantly changed the alignment of the bulb causing it to fail the MOT inspection! So much for using the experts to repair your car.
I tried for over an hour to get the bulb out and the replacement in but the space with the headlamp unit installed in the car was very limited and my big hands and the cold weather made it that bit more difficult. Eventually i decided to remove the headlamp unit. This is where i discovered that cars nowadays are designed to be assembled but not maintained without either removing large components such as the bumper or being advised to bend the bumper out of the way to get access to the headlamp mounting bolts!
After the securing spring was repaired it was reattached to the headlamp unit.
While the headlamp unit was out of the car i was able to remove the dead insect which had entered by the gap between the bulb and the mounting which should not have been there! |
After removing the indicator unit and carefully bending the bumper out of the way i was able to remove the headlamp unit. At this point it was very easy to see why the new bulb could not be replaced. The securing clip was bent badly out of shape. I was able to straighten this and check that it would correctly hold the bulb in place.
The bulb was reinstalled and the rubber gaiter reattached. The headlamp unit was re-connected to the wiring loom before the headlamp was secured in place as i had found trying to detach the connector and reattach it with the headlamp in place almost impossible due to the restricted space behind the headlamp unit.
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