About a month ago the passenger side main beam bulb went in my vauxhall zafira … easy job …some small amount of hand contortion needed to get to the back of the bulb, but do-able, whilst under the bonnet i looked at the drivers side, and thought bloody hell, its lucky that the passenger side bulb went not the drivers side, that looks like a nightmare. Two weeks later i am driving to work at 5am and suddenly think, the drivers side headlight looks a bit dim … yep the other bloody bulb had gone …
fast forward a week to today i have just spent 40minutes laying on the floor, with my left arm reaching through a hatch in the wheel arch blindly trying to put this bloody bulb in.
In the end I had to remove the air filter box to try and free up some space to get my hands in…
I remember the days of my first car a W registration (1981) ford escort … when changing a bulb was no more difficult, than opening the bonnet and leaning in …
Thats the general feeling, but in fairness to the people who actually design these things. There is SO much packed under the bonnet of a modern front wheel drive car that there is literally no space to put anything anywhere so basic stuff like bulbs becomes a 2 man job.
I did a vauxhall insignia headlight the other day which had cracked and had to take the entire bumper off, the slam panel and half the bloody electrical system out just to get to it.
I was not impressed. Customer thinks you are just trying to make the job last longer than it is and rob them. Its a headache.
Dont even get me started on lorries. Mercedes actros mp4 in particular. That lorry has so many awful AWFUL design choices that it actually has to be on purpose. There is no other reason for it.
Usually I didn’t have to dismantle anything, but always you have to do the changing blind just by feeling with hand and looking at pictures in the owners manual. This experience with Ford and Saab.
Currently have xenon-bulbs, which seem to last forever compared to incandescent bulbs. I guess changing them would be a bit more complicated though because of higher voltages used?!
Ha… you and I must be of a similar age, my first car was a W reg Fiesta.
They did still seem to make engine blocks with handy places to smash your knuckles on when trying to loosen bolts though…… Always on a cold day which made you feel like you were going to pass out.
you could almost guarantee a slipped spanner would mash your knuckles against the sharpest part of the block and yes always worse on a cold and wet day
We bought a Xsara Picasso a couple of years ago and I found the blower fan was broken - apparently a common thing in those cars (didn’t happen in our first one, though). So I watched the relevant YT vids and read the posts in the owners forum. The switch variable resistor/pot was easy enough to get hold of, but to fit it you have to remove the glovebox then reach through it and behind the driver’s side of the panel and remove the old one then fit the new one by feel alone. It’s not possible to put a light in there and in any case no room to get your head in a position to look while you’re doing it.
That was a bit of a challenge, but I managed to do it without too much frustration.
As is the case with most mechanical/electronic things nowadays, the focus is on cost and reliability/functionality but never on maintenance or repair.
Unfortunately, while modularity eases those tasks, they don’t help with the goals.
Our PCs used to have just a CPU, RAM, and an IO chipset on a motherboard. Video, sound, LAN/WAN, storage–all of it was separately connected using cards, cables, plugs, whatever. Now it’s all stuffed into a mainboard that needs to be completely replaced if just one thing goes.
Think the last headlight I had to change was on a Ford - and you basically took out the entire plastic light assembly from the front, then removed the cable, so was okay from what I remember.
I see LED headlight options have been creeping into cars over the past few years - and not just those stupid small LED lights that have to stay on all the time.
Unfortunately not. It was my high school car bought on the side of the road. It had been hand spray painted silver with a big run down the side and a suspension that never quite sat level.
and yes always worse on a cold and wet day
