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.