hazard | The Social Programmer

Changing a headlight cluster bulb in moderns cars should be an easy process. However for some cars, it’s a long and drawn out process, sometimes involving the removal of bumper/body trim in order to gain access…as my brother-in-law with the UK’s most popular car, the Ford Focus reliably informs me.

When my wife told me her 51-Plate Peugeot 307’s left-hand indicator was flashing faster than normal, I though to myself “new bulb required”. I had a spare, so I set about extracting the old bulb in order to replace it. Accessing the passenger-side front light cluster is easy: all of the bulbs are in easy to remove holders that have two contact points “making” the connection for the bulb’s power. Annoyingly, it was one of these contact points that had mysteriously (read: poor design, noted by Peugeot, but not a free-of-charge fix) worn out. If my memory serves me, this is the second time this part has been replaced in the 3 years we’ve owned the car.

Here’s the offending part:

I decided to purchase a replacement bulb holder. We had a poor customer service experience with Evans Halshaw: they insisted that the part they sold me was the correct part, it clearly wasn’t. I paid cash for the part, when I asked for a refund I was offered a cheque (the excuse being, no cash was held on site…well, duh, how do you give customers change then?) Since I’ve started ranting, Evans Halshaw could make their Parts department a little bit more approachable: a door bell in the sales area isn’t too obvious…nor was the 15 minute wait for service all that appealing. Luckily I had another larger cheque to pay in to the bank, otherwise it would hardly have been worth paying a cheque for £3.84 in…coupled with two trips to the dealer and the waiting time.

After a little bit of DIY with some solder, the existing part refused to work. So today, I popped into our local Peugeot dealer, Hardie of Dunfermline, who had replaced the part previously. Top marks to the chap (Charlie) in the Parts department, he knew exactly what the part was and how to replace it. For the sum of £3.84 he sold me what Peugeot claim is the replacement part (it doesn’t fit “out of the bag”) and told me which bits of the new bulb holder that I had to remove in order to fit it. The replacement part is numbered 6215.46.

Comparing the two parts below, we can see that the new part has a protruding edge going clockwise from the left-hand contact point (marked with an arrow). The old part doesn’t have this protruding edge.

You may enjoy some mileage with a Stanley knife, however I didn’t. I used an old soldering iron to remove the protruding edge as can be seen below. There is a an edge between the contact points marked 1 below and a similar edge marked 2. There’s also an aligning edge marked 3: you may think that this matches the aligning edge on your old part, however it doesn’t, remove it too.

Anyway, I’ve blogged this fix because I heard both dealers come out with the phrase “oh yes, common fault…” Hopefully it has helped you with your poorly designed French car indicator problems. Given the number of hits my Audi A4 – Replacing the hazard / indicator relay blog entry gets, I should be selling indicator parts!

Technorati Tags: Peugeot, 307, indicator, bulb, holder, replacement, hazard, 6215.46

Whilst driving my 2001 Audi A4 (rhd) last week I was sure that I had engaged my indicator (turn signal), I heard the trusty clicking sound as it started. After a few seconds however, there was silence, just as I was mid-manoeuvre. I tried signalling again, a few clicks then silence again. Over the next few drives I monitored the situation, it seemed to be a little random or intermittent. Not wanting to have to revert to hand signals, I decided a fix was in order. Electrical problems can be notorious to track down and fix, costs can be excessive in relation to the cost of the parts. So I decided to hunt for a solution on the Internet – after all, I can’t be the only person to have endured this problem!

I quickly discovered lots of other people had the same problem and that it wasn’t just limited to the Audi A4 but encompassed the whole Audi and VW family of cars. I was pleased to discover this post over at Audi Forums – it seemed to detail everything that was required. Huge thanks to Dudley Doright (login required, sorry!) for providing this post, it was a great help.

Of course, buying a replacement relay via a main dealer was likely to be expensive too. Fear not, the Internet provided many recommendations for VAG Parts Ltd (sadly this firm is no longer trading). They had the part required for my vehicle (search for A4 RELAY), it cost about £27 with VAT and delivery included. Delivery was swift, within a couple of days of ordering.

UPDATE 22.05.2012: The relay can be purchased through German Auto Spares (http://www.germanautopartsdirect.co.uk)

I would like to add just a little bit Dudley’s post. The relay itself has two securing legs, one down each side. These legs are designed to keep the relay in place. Removing the faulty relay, especially with my cup-holder and fog light controls still in place was a bit of an effort. Using the 90-degree pulling tool helped a lot, but it was an exercise massaging the tool into the position such that it can dislodge the legs and aid removal of the relay. Of course, your mileage may vary. The legs are noted by the two blue circles in the picture below: