Rear High Level Brake light....

[midgelfc]

Anyone know how to change the high level breaklight on the megane 2003 1.4 dynamique? The log book says to bring it to a your local stealer but dont want to. Surely it couldnt be that difficult, just wondering if anyone has tried this?

Thanks

[AlexB]

Yes, it is in the manual and the manual is in Links. This light fails due to corrosion inside the connector or on the printed board. It is easy to repair with conductive paint. If you can't be bothered to repair, then buy the new one for 40 quid. Basically, in order to remove it unclip the plastic trim on the inside of the hatch door. Pull it gently while wiggling from side to side. Then unclip the washer tube, then the light itself.

[midgelfc]

Cheers Alex, thanks for the info, will giv that a go.

[tallpaul]

it is straight forward to do, mine just needed corrosion removing from the pins that connect to the plug.

[tomalamix]

ive decided to take some pictures of this "state of the art" Renault part, maybe made in China, the cheapest place to build this kind of "quality" articles. chck the photos:

The water comes inside the "quality" Renault part through here:



goes all the way in until the end of the connectors and the conductive plate become like this:





This "quality" product conductive plates then passes the problem to the PCB connectors until they are isolated:



The "quality" product is working besides the water ingress:



Finally let me tell you that is possible to open this "quality" product without wrecked it completely and dont spend €80 on the stealer. Just use an hair dryer all around the red transparent plastic and separate it from the rest of the unit. The difficult part is this corner, where the rear window washer have the plug attached, in my case i couldnt be 100% successful and Ive broken this little bit but is possible to recover it:



To close the unit after cleaning the rust i suggest to use some strong silicone to stop the water from entering through the plug and all around the transparent plastic.

good luck...

[davelowe]

Good instructive post. Just one question: is it possible to remove the connector and clean it with steel wool and paint it with silver paint?

[ikhan]

Good instructive post. Just one question: is it possible to remove the connector and clean it with steel wool and paint it with silver paint?

I did this on mine when I first got the car. It's easy to pull the unit apart, but I still couldn't get mine to work - I had a spare one that came with the 225 tailgate so i just swapped them over. From memory, the connector is part of the circuit board. In my case, I think it was the soldering that had come undone due to corrosion (the light was intermittent).

[tomalamix]

Good instructive post. Just one question: is it possible to remove the connector and clean it with steel wool and paint it with silver paint?

ive had to use sand paper to clean all the rust (not all but almost everything), but steel wool will do pretty much the same job, then you can paint it with silver paint, i dont see why not...

[tomalamix]

Good instructive post. Just one question: is it possible to remove the connector and clean it with steel wool and paint it with silver paint?

I did this on mine when I first got the car. It's easy to pull the unit apart, but I still couldn't get mine to work - I had a spare one that came with the 225 tailgate so i just swapped them over. From memory, the connector is part of the circuit board. In my case, I think it was the soldering that had come undone due to corrosion (the light was intermittent).

you can connect the 12v on the PCB itself, like i did to take the photo on the post, bypassing the connector, that way you can rule out any PCB or leds failing...