Owners Forums for Ford and Volkswagen MPVs / SUVs

Just had to change a stoplight bulb.  All of the "how-to"s show the left hand side, which seems fairly simple.  Mine, of course, was the driver's side; the one where you need an arm with the length and flexibility of a gibbon and the finger strength of an adult chimpazee.  Whoever designed them should be granted eternal life and then made to spend all of it replacing bulbs for people.

Afterwards, I thought I should check all the other lights.  All fine until I came to the glovebox.  Total gloom but there is a switch next to the catch so I suppose there should be a light.  I cannot see where it would be however - although I wasn't going to be grovelling on the ground to see the top of the box in this weather.  There's nothing in either the driver's handbook or any of the online parts cats.  Does anyone know if, where and what should be there?

Whilst I have your attention, I seem to remember that projector type lights can be manually switched between left and right hand dipping.  Is the same true for HID?

Many thanks in advance and enjoy your festive season.  I'm looking forward to being spiked next year and getting back to a semblance of normality.

If you've got the owners manual for it, that usually describes how to adjust this (certainly I remember doing this on a Fiesta for one of my neighbours as they were struggling to follow the instructions given there and it was fairly straightforward once you found the bit you move up/down to switch between sides much like described above).

Agree on the comment in the first paragraph - whats the point in requiring people to carry spare bulbs if fitting them at the roadside is close to impossible anyway.

OooooKkkkkk....  Nice day, so time to sort this out.  No previous amount of contortions would allow me to see the roof of the glovebox, so it was time to resort to intelligence.  A mirror with LEDs around it was pence online and arrived fairly sharpish.  Using that, I could see that there was a unit with a bulb in, next to the switch but no obvious way to take the bulb out.  Then I realised that the unit was held into the lip of the glovebox with some clips.  It was fairly easy to push it away from the lid and into the glovebox, unplug the wire and remove it.  The bulb needed prying out as there was nowhere to grip it.  It was obviously blown.  You can see the attachment clips and the blown bulb below.



Prised the bulb out and replaced and went to shove it all back together.  Reconnected the wiring and idly pressed the switch to watch the light go out.  It stayed on.

Much fiddling and disassembly later, it became obvious the the switch had been incorrectly assembled, probably from new.  When we bought the car we discovered, to our dismay, a receipt for new alternator and battery when it was two years old.  I bet that was because the battery kept discharging if it was left for a week or so.  Not being able to find the drain the Ford techs (it was a lease hire vehicle at the time) just replaced the major components and I am guessing the bulb blew around the same time.  Two years constantly on is good going for one of those.  Happy days.

Just need to find the beam dip lever, now.

Well, with a whizz-bang camera on the end of a fibre optic cable, I can see them but, so far, no success in retrieving them.  It looks like I will have to remove the inertia reel part of the seatbelt to gain access and, to do that, I need to remove the rear fuse box, which appears to be held in by magic.  Anyone know how to just free it from the body so I can move it to get at the belt attachment?

Alternatively, does anyone have a pair of the fixings lying around?  HN2 on this diagram.
http://catcar.info/ford/?lang=en&l=bWFya2V0PT1ldXJvfHxjYXRfaWQ9PTExMDAxfHxjYWJicj09R0NBMXx8dGhrPT0zfHxzdD09NjB8fHN0cz09eyIyMCI6IkV1cm9wZSIsIjMwIjoiUy1NQVhcL0dhbGF4eSBDQTEgMjAwNi0yMDE1IiwiNDAiOiI0IEVsZWN0cmljYWwiLCI1MCI6IjQxNzAzIEVsZWN0cmljYWwuUmVhciBBbmQgUm9vZiBXaWR0aCBNYXJrZXIgTGFtcHMiLCI2MCI6IjQxNzAzMDVEIFJlYXIgTGFtcHMifXx8YWxwaGE9PTR8fGdyb3VwPT00MTcwM3x8c2VjdD09NDAxNEFPVHx8c2V0PT1BMTQxNzAzfHxpbWc9PUswMzI2MjYzMDJ8fGYxMj09LTY4Nzc2NzU1MisxMzU%3D

Back to sticking pins in models of Ford designers for me.  It doesn't solve the problem but it makes me feel better.

Only if I get the seatbelt bobbin out of the way.  And we don't have a metal coathanger in the house.  I managed to get close to them with blutak on the end of a welding rod but there just isn't enough space to manoeuvre once you get down to them and I think it would be too bendy if I did.  Got really close with blutak on a cable tie but couldn't press to make it stick.  Most frustrating.

What about one of these, have had one for years there a life saver.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/274893889360?hash=item4000f3df50:g:up8AAOSwtKVaesS~

Thanks for the suggestions, folks.  I have multiple versions of the giant pickle grabber but they are all too inflexible.  It needs to go in a hole and turn an immediate right angle and they are just too stiff.  The vacuum sucker idea is favourite at the moment.  If I could pull the seat belt bobbin, there would be much more room but the fusebox is in the way.  If anyone knows how that is attached, I would be very grateful.

Test passed

Time for a sizeable portion of humble pie. 

Even with new fasteners, I am not going to be able to reattach the light without considerable risk of dropping them again. 

So as I wait for someone with much smaller and beautifully formed hands to appear, I try to retrieve the lost parts.  Pull the back off the seats and it's obvious I will need to do much more disassembly before I will be able to get access under the floor.  So let's try the side panel.  The B&C pillar coverings will need to come off to remove it completely, so lets try to undo the bottom in case I can reach in that way.  The boot rim capping on the floor needs to come off first.  Luckily, it's split into three segments so I pull the relevant side part off.  It just comes straight up.  Two seconds' work.

And there are the errant fasteners, peering up at me with a "who? us?" look on their faces!  I was sure they were much further down than that.

I need to go somewhere dark and quiet and swear a lot.

If they are anything like the ones on the C-Max of the same era, I know where your coming from, Trying to change a blown bulb on one of those was an absolute pain!