I jumped in the Mondeo today to be greeted with a bing and a message saying brake light inoperative.No problem i thought.I got the wife to see which one was out and set about replacing it.
I took the little door off the lamp assembly and looked inside.There was a clip holding the assembly in place with 2 bulbs mounted in it.I removed the clip and withdrew the assembly and took out the stop/tail bulb.Sure enough one of the elements had broken.So i started to pop the assembly back in to drive to the motorist shop near me.I was soon struggling to get the assembly back into place and in doing so pressed the indicator bulb in somehow and out it popped and fell into the light cluster.With only a small aperture i couldn't get the bulb back out.
I needed to remove the whole light cluster in order to turn it upside down to get the bulb out.
Trouble was i didn't have a socket set handy.
Seeing as the driver side assembly now didn't have an indicator bulb nor a stop lamp i was at a loss as to what to do.
I then had a moment of inspiration and planned my journey to the motorist shop using only left turns!
Believe it or not all the turns to the shop were infact left hand turns!
I got to the shop without incident and bought the new bulbs and a socket set and fixed it outside the shop.
What should have been a five minute job took me 45 minutes!
I need a beer now to calm down!
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The Fiesta has blown a front side-light - I'm ignoring it. I have a spare one and it seems an easy enough swap....I just know that with my current run of mechanical luck it will take hours. So it's a minor running fault, illegal. But I never drive on sidelights, so I don't care.
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I couldn't do that Rob, no more than I could ever wear green underpants. It'd have to be fixed. No question. I'd be out there now with a torch doing it for sure.
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>> The Fiesta has blown a front side-light - I'm ignoring it. I have a spare
>> one and it seems an easy enough swap....I just know that with my current run
>> of mechanical luck it will take hours. So it's a minor running fault, illegal. But
>> I never drive on sidelights, so I don't care.
>>
True, but if you lose a headlight bulb you now have no light whatsoever on that side of the car...
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It rarely ventures out in the dark - but it has got the benefit of dual headlamps...
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Its in the hands of Ron, he''l fix it.
Later Ron that is
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And you've now got a shiny new socket set ! ( which you maybe didn't need but hey, a man can't have too many tools ! )
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I bought a torque wrench...
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Fab !
Do you know how to work it?
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>> Fab !
>>
>> Do you know how to work it?
No its welsh and he dont torque the language.
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>>No its welsh
TTorque WWrench then?
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>> I jumped in the Mondeo today to be greeted with a bing and a message
>> saying brake light inoperative.No problem
yes exactly. No problem, you have three for crying out loud, it could have waited and didn't need to turn into a distress fix.
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Z, sometimes you really just don't get it do you? "could have waited" For the love of God..."could have waited"...
Sheesh !
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>> Z, sometimes you really just don't get it do you? "could have waited" For the
>> love of God..."could have waited"...
>>
>> Sheesh !
Aye, could have waited, its the phrase we non compulsive obsessive types use.
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>>its the phrase we non compulsive obsessive types use.
More like the phrase the idle retired use by the sounds of things ! Can't you still remember when you used to just get things done? Your brain will atrophy you know if you're not careful. Seen it happen. Maybe it has already started? Want to watch that y'know...
;-)
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>> More like the phrase the idle retired use by the sounds of things ! Can't
>> you still remember when you used to just get things done?
The old bull and the young bull...........
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I am normally like that - if it was a light bulb on one of the bikes I would be straight there - trox drivers, spare BMW OE bulb....the Fiesta lives at a different pace.
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I can see the urgency on a bike, but a car - one out of three down? come on, chillax man.
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What I couldn't help thinking was: 'FFS, don't they teach people hand signals these days?'
Probably not I guess, so no one would understand them either.
God I hate the modern world.
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What you doing running a clapped out Fiesta Rob? I am quite jealous I still miss my old rattling Fiestas. Sadly none of them were strictly legal and I was too paranoid of being stopped by the cops and getting points on my licence. At the time I was still on probation and I think that was a big reason I bought my brand new Panda, although 3 and a half years later I don't regret it one bit.
I do love those old push rod Fiesstas though, apart from rust nothing will kill it as long as you keep feeding the engine cheap 20/50 oil.
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The Fiesta is used for dog-toting - works well in that role. This is a 1.25 powered one. As sweet as a nut - the engine.
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You're right AC - occasionally and spontaneously, despite all its LED signalling lamps I will hand signal a left turn on the bike - the world seems to hold its breath when I do this..
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Careful now, if you are going to try taking your hands off, we will need to fit you with stabilisers, remember the scooter.
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On my Zafira B you have to take the whole unit out to change any of the rear bulbs - plastic wing nut sort of things provided through plastic flaps in side panels. Don't drop them!! Except on n/s you are feeding your fingers blind through lots of stiff wiring to the rear control electronics panel situated nearby and on the o/s they put some nice sharp metal edges to confound your fingers!
I look at some of the 1960's light units where two screws release the plastic cover from the outside and then a simple twist to replace the bulb and wonder where progress went.
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>
>> I look at some of the 1960's light units where two screws release the plastic
>> cover from the outside and then a simple twist to replace the bulb and wonder
>> where progress went.
Yeah I remember that. The days of light clusters half full up with green water sloshing around, dim flickering lights, whole light clusters lighting up or flashing so you didn't know if it was braking or turning, and the days of missing light bulbs cos some scumbag nicked yours.
Progress indeed.
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>> I look at some of the 1960's light units where two screws release the plastic
>> cover from the outside and then a simple twist to replace the bulb and wonder
>> where progress went.
>>
They were fine until the screws rusted in and/or snapped off and with some of them were a nightmare to get to seal again properly after they had been disturbed.
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>> I jumped in the Mondeo today to be greeted with a bing and a message saying brake light inoperative.No problem i thought.I got the wife to see which one was out and set about replacing it.
>> What should have been a five minute job took me 45 minutes!
Could have been worse.
During the week I took a call from a guy with a 59 plate E class with a brake light out.
NO replaceable bulbs or LEDs..... need to supply and fit a new cluster - £190 plus fitting!
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>>E class ....£190 plus fitting!
Blood and sand !
:-(
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>> >>E class ....£190 plus fitting!
Blood and sand !
:-(
It's fine.. LED lights are designed to last the life of the car....
... better start scrapping 4 year old cars.... ;-)
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>> >>E class ....£190 plus fitting!
>>
>>
>> Blood and sand !
>>
>> :-(
>>
Cheaper than a Cashcow door mirror though !
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>> >>E class ....£190 plus fitting!
>> :-(
>>
I am sure I read somewhere that Volvo LED rear light clusters were about £200, not easily fixable, and rare at the scrappy.
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To be fair it wasn't the cars fault.It was my stupidity dropping the bulb down into the cluster and then not having a socket set to hand that made the job alot worse.
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£211.00 to replace both rear light clusters on the 3 Series, most of which I recovered on the Warranty Direct thingy. For one unit it cost over £250.00....don't understand the logic. I suppose as a long term buy one would just swap the rear clusters for ones from a basic model/..
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plenty of beemers around at the breakers with the fronts stoved in
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Tail light woes - R.P.
