Irrelevant car maintenance tips
Jan. 16th, 2002 09:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sanpaku_backupI decided the other night to attempt to replace a burned out car headlight myself. I discovered that the procedure for doing so is nothing like the simple diagram in the manual. After disconnecting an air vent and reaching down into the bowels of the car and finally locating the bulb housing, and taking it out, and taking out the bulb (my hands were numb from the cold), the new bulb would not go on. The old one popped right on. They looked identical to me. Finally I figured out that on the inside of the old bulb, there was a little hard to see plastic prong between the contacts. It looked like
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With two grooves, while the new one looked like
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Hm. Seemed kinda stupid to me that a new bulb wouldn't work because of a plastic thingee. So I spent about 10 minutes groping around trying to fit the bulb housing back into the light and lock the little ring that holds it (I never did get it to lock, and scraped my hand pretty badly). I went back to the store today and asked the guy if they had any other kind of bulbs. He had no idea of what I was talking about, so I returned the bulb.
Went to the next auto parts store (about 20 feet away). They were out of low beam bulbs, but they had the same make for the high beams. And I look at them and they have the two grooves. Gee, that's funny. It actually takes me about 5 minutes to realize that I was trying to replace the wrong bulb. Now I gotta go back to the first place and buy the same bulb I just returned. It is amazing how complicated this turned out to be.
|=
With two grooves, while the new one looked like
|-
Hm. Seemed kinda stupid to me that a new bulb wouldn't work because of a plastic thingee. So I spent about 10 minutes groping around trying to fit the bulb housing back into the light and lock the little ring that holds it (I never did get it to lock, and scraped my hand pretty badly). I went back to the store today and asked the guy if they had any other kind of bulbs. He had no idea of what I was talking about, so I returned the bulb.
Went to the next auto parts store (about 20 feet away). They were out of low beam bulbs, but they had the same make for the high beams. And I look at them and they have the two grooves. Gee, that's funny. It actually takes me about 5 minutes to realize that I was trying to replace the wrong bulb. Now I gotta go back to the first place and buy the same bulb I just returned. It is amazing how complicated this turned out to be.
