how to change a head light bulb?

[kingozza]

Can anyone please help me?

My driver side head light has blown and can`t work out how to change it. I might sound stupid but just can`t work it out!!

I`ve removed the expansion tank to get to the back of the head light unit and removed the top part of the cover but can`t remove the cover fully to get to the bulb. there dosen`t seem enough space to remove it.

Any ideas would help thanks

[from Margaritaville...]

does this help?

http://www.newbeetle.org/forums/show...ight=headlight

[from Margaritaville...]

and the "how-to" from the technical forum:

http://www.newbeetle.org/forums/showthread.php?t=171

[13Beetlejuice13]

Just piping in but boy was i nervous about popping my headlight changing cherry the other day after how many horror stories i've read on here but, fortunately, mine was easy as pie to change, took me 5 minutes tops.

[lancelot]

My passenger side took about 5-10 minutes, but my drivers side seems to get stuck right when the lever is right near the top...so close to the gold...I WD40'd the snot out of it, and still no good

I don't want to break anything, any suggestions? I have wiggled it, I have wiggled the light housing from the rear, still nothing What's stopping it from going all the way up? There's no debris...why do all Beetle owners have troubles with just the drivers side and the drivers side seems to be the first to burn out?

[lancelot]

They recommended removing the battery and the box around it to get the drivers side headlight out...maybe there's something in that plastic battery surround that's holding the headlight lever from going all the way up?

[swell]

Can someone post pics again? All the ones on those threads are gone.

[franjalu]

- remove the air filter housing
-there is a lever on the back of the head light, push a botton next to the lever and pull the lever up.
-now push out(forward) the whole head light housing
-now you can change the light bulb.

good luck:

[lkchris]

Well, you'll have to disconnect the wiring connector to get the headlight unit out.

Then, you'll have to figure out how to get the access door off the back of the headlight unit. Will require TORX tool to remove retaining screw.

Then, you'll have to figure out the workings of the spring clip that retains the H1 bulb.

Then, you'll remember not to touch the glass of the bulb.

On my 2003 TDI, no removal of anything else in the engine compartment is required. Sincerely doubt it is in other models, either. You DO have to remove the entire headlight unit for this job--bulb change not possible leaving it in the car. This is the design intent.

A good solution for extending bulb life is to disable DRLs--procedure elsewhere in this forum.

There are longer life bulbs, but you won't find them at PepBoys.
http://www.powerbulbs.com/product_detail.asp?prod=125
http://www.powerbulbs.com/product_detail.asp?prod=143

[dbr111363]

It seems that VW made a simple thing very hard. Not because it's hard, but because they didn't provide basic instruction. Here is all you have to do.

1) Open hood
2) Look inside the engine compartment at the headlamp side you are needing to replace.
3) You will see a 1.5" plastic lever extending from headlight assembly.
4) To remove headlight, simply push the small black button (is about 1/4" x 1/2" and has cross-hatched stamp in metal) until you can move the lever from the down position to the full up position.
5) The headlight assembly should release a few centimeters. You should then be able to grab a hold of the headlight assembly and gently twist back and forth until the headlight releases and comes out.
6) Final step is to unhook the elec wires by simply pulling the cap from the connection.
7) Remove black cover from assembly and replace bulb.
8) Reverse instructions for re-installation.

This should only take about 5 minutes--tops!!! Good luck.

[cwunch]

HI, I have a 2000 beetle,

I can not move the lever to the full up position on the passenger side?

It goes a litte more than half way up but not enough to remove the headlight.

So what can I do?
Please help


~~~~ I had to move the assembly a little bit, but It went all the way up and I was able to change the bulb thanks ...

[Canadianbugin]

If you are replacing your bulbs too often you might want to buy an HID kit for your car.I replaced mine with 6000k HIDS and love them!!! The kit cost me 100 buck's Canadian.And it's a simple install plug and play...took me 15 minutes.Up here in the great white north long life bulbs cost 75 buck's a pair so i think Hids are the more cost affective replacement!!!

[cep]

What year Beetle? Our '06 is completely different than our '02. You don't have to remove anything under the hood to change bulbs.

[momsgotabeetle]

Latching Mechanism Stuck? This post is for you!

Trying to change my mom’s 2002 VW beetle drivers side headlight, I scoured the online forums looking for wisdom. I got the infamous sliding lever part of the way up, but it wouldn’t budge any more! It didn’t seem too many other people online had that problem. It didn’t take long for me to break the little lever off because the plastic was very brittle. What now! A local auto shop said take it to the dealer in Phoenix, there’s nothing they could do. Oh boy that sounds expensive! Then my step fater had a great idea. He drilled a small hole below where the lever broke off, and we used a little hook pick to begin working at pulling on the sliding mechanism again.

For me, some wisdom about how this mechanism works is helpful….here’s my attempt to describe:
The sliding mechanism that the lever is attached to is part of a big sliding black plastic ring that goes (almost) all the way around the back side of the gray plastic headlight housing. By the way, the little tab on it they tell you to press in, almost everybody (me included) breaks that thing off when trying to press it in. The gray plastic headlight housing has three little pegs that come out of them near the back that fit into a little angled grooves on that black plastic sliding ring. When you’re pulling on the lever, you’re trying to slide the whole ring, and there’s a good chance the part of the ring that is far away from the lever and below the headlight is stuck with grime and dirt or whatever and is not easily slid by messing with the lever on the other side. So some advice from a couple of these forum posts proved very wise…..to use WD 40 and let it soak in. Also to gently work the front of the headlight in and out while you try to bring the lever up (and while you try to work the lever up, down, side to side, to try to work that ring free).
You will notice if you get the lever part way up that the headlight may begin to come out a little…that is because the angled grooves are letting the pegs on the headlight body forward a little bit, but you still have a way to go before you get to the “entrance” of the angled groove where the headlight body will be “released!” So keep working it and be gentle. All of a sudden, after working at it for 30 minutes, hallelujah the thing popped loose! It was very helpful to have two people doing this, one gently pressing in and out on the front of the headlight (yes with my fingers tucked beneath the narrow little gap between the headlight and where it seats) and the other person working the sliding mechanism trying to break it free. After the light popped loose, it was connected by a big black wire to the car, and there was no worry of it falling on the ground because it “dangled” by that big black wire. By the way we did not have to remove any of the things on the drivers side that people talk about being in the way like the battery cover.
We changed the low-beam bulb. The little black cover littlerally took twenty seconds to remove, and there at the top was the rear of the low beam bulb. The little clever wire mechanism locking the bulb in took about ten seconds to remove and the bulb was free. We pulled the little wire off the back and secured it to the new bulb (following the advice to not let our fingers touch the glass part of the new halogen bulb). That part was an absolute snap.

Now getting it back in! We thought of a nifty trick that helped make installation a snap. There are three “sliding bars” on the light’s body for lack of better thing to call them that fit into three sliding tracks attatched to the light’s housing. There are also those three pegs I mentioned earlier that fit into the sliding ring locking mechanism. The trick is to position that ring in the right place so that when you get it on the tracks and start sliding it in, the pegs will go back into the sliding locking mechanism. If you haven’t touched the black plastic ring, then this should be no problem. If you’re like us and poked and prodded at it and messed with it, all of a sudden now you have to find a way to line it back up perfectly. We used a tape measure to measure from the center of one of the “bars” that go into the tracks, to the center of the adjacent “peg”. Then we measured inside the headlight housing from the center of a track where the bar goes, to the opening that the peg is going to slide in, and we adjusted the black sliding ring to make the two distances equal. Then when we slide the light housing back into the three tracks, the pegs went right back into the locking mechanism and as you shove the light back, the nifty mechanism will actually turn and lock the headlight in place by itself! You shouldn’t even need to go and mess with the lever again. Voila it’s locked in place!