Headlight/indicator bulb change explained-its gone again?

[jpgreenwood]

A while ago my front passenger side indicator stopped working. Yesterday, my headlight bulb went also. I bought 2 new bulbs from my local autoparts shop. £5.50. It has just taken me approx 20 minutes to change them both. Heres how I changed the headlight bulb....
1, removed panel in wheel arch, quarter turn anti-clockwise and pulled out. ( I only used this to access the indicator)
2, removed headlamp upper trim under bonnet-2 small quarter turn plastic fasteners. I also removed battery cover trim for more access.
3, Reached in above headlamp, twisted quarter turn and pulled off the headlamp rear weather cover (round plastic cap).
4, Pulled off the electrical 2 prong connector.(remember how this is orientated)
5, unclipped the small metal spring clip at the top by pushing it downwards and removed it by pushing in the 2 lower securing prongs.(remember how this goes for refit) You probably don't need to fully remove this clip but I didnt know this at the time
5, pulled out the bulb-no turning involved.
6, fitted new bulb, spring clip, electrical connector.
7, turned lights on to test bulb works.
8, refitted weather cap.
This is how I changed the indicator bulb.....
1, reached in through the wheel arch access cover.
2, felt a flat spade like plastic handle (roughly in line with the bulb).
Turned the plastic handle slightly to the left-anti clockwise.
3 pull out rearwards, with some wiggling. The whole bulb, holder assembly removes-no wiring involved-purely metal/metal connections. The holder has to go further back into the wing than where you can retract it. Then bring it forward and down out of the wheel arch access hole.
4, push and twist the bulb out of the holder, fit new bulb.
5 Place back in wing rearwards, then bring forwards to align with indicator holder. Push and twist slightly clockwise to lock the holder in place.
6, check from the front of headlamp for alignment and swich on indicators/hazzards to test.
7, finally refit wheel arch access cover with a twist and all under bonnet trim panels.
8, Wash up and give yourself a smug grin knowing reg vardy,s have'nt ripped you off.
p.s I spent 18 yrs fixing Harrier and Tornado aircraft so this was no challenge for me.
Hope this is of help to a lot of you.

[Scenic]

Great info for the changing of bulbs

Now I have Harrier that wont jump start, any ideas

[AlexB]

It is not a rocket science, is it? Any aircraft engineer can do it in 20 minutes.

If I am not mistaken, yours is 1.6L model. I've changed only the headlight bulbs on my 1.9DCI-120 Expression on both sides by going from under the wheel arch. Every side took approx 10-15min including removal of the road wheel. The trim under the bonnet was also removed to make the field visible.

I was unable, however, to reach the bulbs from under the bonnet, which is, probably, a characteristic of 1.9DCI. Well, it was possible to reach it on the port side, but the bulb cover refused to squeeze into the gap.

So, the "secret" is to remove the road wheel and to go from under the arch. This works on both sides.

[Moey]

Same here. I had to go and get ripped by reg vardy as I could get them out, but not in (and alomost dislocated my arm in the process).

[jpgreenwood]

Just 22 days later from the last bulb blown and my headlight bulb has blown again. Is this a common fault or could it be the auto lights causing undue stress on the bulb. This is the only time this has happened as I have only owned the car 5 months. It is the same headlight unit at fault.

[AlexB]

Auto lights do put additional stress on bulbs, but this stress is not "undue". So many times I saw people driving with lights off when they should be on. Auto lights is a safety feature, which, I believe, pays for itself.

Your case may be down to bad luck or there can be a loose contact somewhere. A loose contact may cause destructive current surges and/or reduced tempeatures, which are bad for these bulbs.

[GRUMPYGILLY]

its not a common fault as far as i know. But if you touched the glass of the bulb with your fingers,the oils in your skin can cause a hot spot on the bulb making it blow,which is not good to stop this try using latex gloves( like doctors use)hope this helps

[Scenic]

its not a common fault as far as i know. But if you touched the glass of the bulb with your fingers,the oils in your skin can cause a hot spot on the bulb making it blow,which is not good to stop this try using latex gloves( like doctors use)hope this helps

Just to add to this advice clean the bulb with meths.

[darel]

Just 22 days later from the last bulb blown and my headlight bulb has blown again. Is this a common fault or could it be the auto lights causing undue stress on the bulb. This is the only time this has happened as I have only owned the car 5 months. It is the same headlight unit at fault.

there is a fault with the entire headlight unit where corrosion in the contacts causes problems. Often the bulbs are ok and its the connection that is not being made.. a little 'jiggle' fixes it often, but the real fix is to change out the entire headlight unit..

[DEEJAY1976]

my n/s/f incator was going on one,indicating the bulb was gone but i knew it was the contacts as when i smacked the headlight it started working for a couple hours the stopped,i couldnt get my hands in to change the indicator so just removed the front bumper,then removed the headlight,i removed the bulb from the holder and got a small screw driver and raised the two prongs slightly and used some wet and dry sand paper to make sure the contacts were good,been a week now and its still working good

[steves]

Heres how I changed the headlight bulb....
Hope this is of help to a lot of you.

Just a rant about my experience trying to change a bulb...

I've just spent a fruitless painful hour laying on the driveway trying to change the drivers side headlight (dipped beam) bulb on our 1.6 Megane II.

Didn't take the plastic trim off under the bonnet until too late - so didn't see what way round the electrical connector went, or how the spring was fitted (just came off in my hand whilst removing the bulb). Removing the covers only allowed a little bit of light through from above - jpgreenwood you must have small hands! Also noticed, incidentally, how much surface rust is on the ends of the metal bar that the trim covers... Do they not paint these things properly in the factory?

Managed to extract the old bulb, insert the new one, but thats when I hit problems. I can't get the metal spring to fit back. I used a mirror to work out where the prongs should go, but when I refit and clip it in, it (a) doesn't hold the bulb tight, and (b) the plug won't go back on the bulb.

The manual says that the clip goes on first, and then the electrical connector. Can anyone confirm this is the right way to do it?

I also tried reversing the spring (putting it on back to front) but it doesn't seem to fit that way. Can anyone remember how it fits?

Very angry with the car now. Brings a whole new meaning to how many engineers does it take to change a lightbulb? (they recommend in the handbook that you keep spare bulbs in case of emergencies, perhaps they should also tell you to carry a Renault Technician in the back?).

Is this how modern cars are now designed? I've owned a variety of cars in my time (Ford, Rover, VW...) and have had to change a headlight bulb in all of them before at some point or another. But never has it taken more than 10 minutes, and never did I just have to give up and admit defeat.

So now we can't legally drive the car after dark, and I'm going to get fleeced by the dealer, who are also a 20 mile round trip away

Before that though, can anyone point me in the right direction as to where I've gone wrong? I did think about removing the bumper, wheel or wheel arch trim, but I'm not a mechanic at the end of the day, and don't want to break something.

To top it all off, we can't use "hands free" to unlock any of the doors (only the boot). This happened at the same time we noticed the bulb had blown. Wonder whether by some strange fluke of French electrics the two faults are related?

Can't wait to part exchange this unreliable, faulty heap of junk to be honest.

[MrAsia]

I reckon it's faster removing the bumper and replacing the globe that way. After the first time it only takes around 5mins to remove the bumper.

[steves]

Well I went out again this morning and changed both bulbs (great when you know what you should be looking for, after searching other threads on this site).

The passenger side, I changed it in about 60 seconds flat.

The drivers side was harder because the metal bracket that the top of the clip attaches to was bent upwards (probably why I had so much trouble yesterday). Teased it back in to line with a screwdriver from above (under the bonnet). The bulb on the drivers side doesn't feel quite as well secured as the passenger side, but it doesn't seem to move until you pull at it. Going to go out for a drive when it gets dark to make sure all is well.

The big problem (and I find this every time I have to do anything that isn't completely obvious to the car) is that the text descriptions and the pictures in the usual manual are utter crap. Whether our manual was an early effort (a lot of the illustrations of the LCD display in the car are in French!), but from the pictures of the bulb holder, you care barely tell its a headlight, let alone how the fixing works or where anything goes.

Just in case its useful to other people, this is how I did it (refers to the dipped beam bulb, not sure how the others work):

- Put steering on full lock in whatever direction you get best access to the "hatch" in the wheel arch trim.

- Remove the hatch in the wheel arch, and also the two pieces of trim under the bonnet. On the drivers side, the trim that covers the washer bottle and the expansion/header tank - remove the cap off the expansion tank first, making sure the engine isn't hot! On the passenger side, remove the two pieces of joined trim that roughly cover the headlight area). In all cases give the plastic "screws" a half turn which will unlock them and allow you to lift the panel out. With these pieces of trim out the way, you can look down from above and see whats going on (not that you get a great view, but its better than nothing).

- Next reach in through the hatch in the wheel arch to twist and remove the black plastic disc/cover from the back of the light fitting (it looks/feels like the lid off a drinking flask), and carefully extract it through the hatch, and put to one side.

- Again, through the access hatch, pull the connector off the bulb, and then unhook the clip (feel the top of it to work out whats going on, it needs to be pushed in slightly and then moved to one side to unhook it from the "claw" on the light fitting - as others have said, it attaches sideways, and *not* over the top) This action shouldn't require a lot of effort, don't pull too hard at it, you might do what I did and bend the bracket, which appears to be quite delicate.

- The spring clip hinges downwards (its attached to the bottom of the light fitting on two lugs). Its easy to reattach if it comes off completely... look down from under the bonnet to see the two lugs.

- Now insert the new bulb with the lug/notch at the top. Wiggle it slightly (shake-a-that-arse!) to get it to seat properly. Now reattach the spring clip (again, don't push too hard, just push up gently, and pull sideways to clip in to the claw).

- Reattach the cabling (it only seems to fit one way round due to how its attached to the loom). Now switch the headlights on and check everything is working.

- Finally, replace the lamp cover and all the trim and hatch covers you removed. On our car, the hatch covers don't seem to fit very well ... especially the round one on the passenger side. No surprise there.

Job done. Although I removed the trim from under the bonnet, I didn't actually need to reach in to do anything from above. I did all the work from the hatch covers in the wheel arch. Didn't need to remove the wheels, bumpers, wheel arch liners etc. Then again, people always tell me that I'm very patient.

I think that its the kind of job that once done, would probably be easy the second time. Well, maybe easy is the wrong word... easier perhaps. If Renault had done a better job in the user manual (like explaining, and illustrating, how the the spring clip worked), then it would probably have taken me 20 minutes tops.

Anyway, I hope this is useful to someone.

Oh, and before I forget... how strange are French electronics? Fitted the new headlight bulb, and hands free entry is now working again. How can the headlights and the door locking be linked in that way? So bizarre!

Steve.

[Scenic]

Well done Steve, great explanation and detail, so for anybody with a Megane they should have no probs

Now Steve I have a ScenicII and I would love to know how to change a light bulb on this model (dont have those handy wheelarch hatchs) but up to now I have had very few problems with this car and it has just passed it's first mot with no probs, now I am temptimg fate

[steves]

Well done Steve, great explanation and detail, so for anybody with a Megane they should have no probs

Now Steve I have a ScenicII and I would love to know how to change a light bulb on this model (dont have those handy wheelarch hatchs) but up to now I have had very few problems with this car and it has just passed it's first mot with no probs, now I am temptimg fate

If I had taken the car completely apart, I would have taken some pictures of the fittings as well, just to help people in future. But I never got that far (thankfully!).

The only remaining thoughts of dodgyness I have left are the "hatch covers". They didn't seem to fit back very well. Especially the passenger side one. I imagine that driving on wet roads at motorway speeds, a lot of water is thrown at high speed in their direction. Just hope it doesn't matter if they're not completely water-tight.

I read that the Scenic requires lots of stuff to be removed to replace the bulbs. I wonder if this is just the way with modern cars now? They make most of their profit out of servicing, so they design the car so non-mechanically minded people like me can't do anything to it.

Soon, if you want to top up the oil or water, they'll be fitting some special cap that can only be removed with a special Renault tool. I suppose the answer is to buy a cruder car built by a nation where people like to fix their own problems, or can't afford to keep visiting the dealer.

Oh, and central locking problem partially returned this morning. You have to pull on the handle to wake the system up before it will unlock. I hear from my brother-in-law (who used to be a Renault Master Technician) that means one of the sensors is probably faulty and the system is running in some kind of failsafe mode. More grief.