General How to change a light bulb.

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General How to change a light bulb.

Woody

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My dipped headlight - passanger side - has blown (Punto ELX). So out comes the owners manual. Release clip and remove cover. Bl*$£$*$s Will the cover come off no, it keeps getting stuck. Also I can't see if I ever do get the cover off there being enough space to get the bulb out.

Never buy a Fiat.
 
bulbs arnt easy to replace especially if its the passenger side, mine went about 6 montsh ago. anyways the cover like it sais should just come off allthough if its the fisrt time it can get lil stuck so need a good pull. i think you have to pull the clip side of the cover of first then you have to manouver it out its tricky on pasenger side due to lack of room there lol to change bulb was even harder when i done mine i had to unbolt the fusebox casing and move it back as far as it would go about an inch to give myself more room. then it was case of lots of fiddling and scrapped knuckles to get it in and a pair of pliers makes it harder that you are not supposed to touch the glass on the bulb. the other way is to take the light out wich you need to do if fog light goes but to get light out you have to take bumper off :(

and i agree crap design. my cavalier took 30 seconds to change bulb think i spent about an hour plus injured hands on my fiat
 
He he...

I just swapped mine and my girlfriend's Punto dipped headlights for new bulbs (top kit by the way!!! I'll detail more below).

On my girlfriend's car (2001 without integrated foglights), I EVENTUALLY got the cover off the passenger side. Total pain though and my fingers hurt now.

On my passenger side though, (2003 Active Sport with foglights), my god did I do some swearing.

In the end it was the easy option to undo the three bolts holding the headlight unit to the car. That allowed enough forward movement to get the cover out of the way and remove/replace the bulb.

Obviously you need to make sure the unit goes back into the same place but the clean bits under the plastic mounting showed me where to put it back!!!

As for the bulbs, well....

Got them from www.powerbulbs.co.uk

TOP TOP TOP service. Not only were the prices good (incl. free delivery) but they got here next day (and I'm in Scotland now).

Got a set of the Philips 150's (H7 fitting) and the Osram Cool Blue (H1 fitting, and CHECK your lights for which bulb you need. The Punto 99-03 has H7 fittings according to everyone everywhere. I can assure you that the dipped and main bulbs on mine are BOTH H1 fittings).

Plus at the moment you will get a set of the Philips 'blue' sidelights free. So I now have a seriously nice looking white beam rather than the more yellowey colour. And note that eventhough the Osram and Philips bulbs are 'blue', they aren't just to give a stupid blue effect, these are top bulbs.

Sorry about the long post!!!
 
lol i remember the hurt the fingers thing from when i done mine. and like you said abut the bulbs make sure you check your actuall car they seemed to have fit one of 2 kinds to the mk2 punto and not as everwere states h7 mine were h1 aswell i beileive allthough a guy on here with same year car had h7. wierd.
 
The H7/H1 thing is odd.

Do you have the integrated fog lights?

It may be a simple thing that if you do, you need H1 bulbs, if not, it's H7 but I can't be totally sure until I get a few more voices on this one.
 
First of all Mr.Coates thanks for the great link.

It's well known that changing lightbulbs on Puntos is a pain. I usually just take the whole headlamp unit out and then switch the bulbs, nice and easy, and it reduces the grazed knuckles. Then I check the headlamp alignment against a wall when it's dark, and every 3 months I get the lamps electronically checked and aligned.

On another note, I went to the local FIAT dealers here in Galway (that's Millennium Autos, folks, and believe me, it's not this Millennium they're in either). Anyway, back in June I bought a couple of bulbs for the front dipped beams. Not too bad at 5 euro a go.

Came back in October. 2 bulbs please. 18 euro please. Paid - knowing I had the old receipt and fancying an argument.

Out to car, old receipt got... excuse me, these were only a 10er for 2 last time I was here. Surely lightbulbs don't go up by almost 80% etc etc.

Alright, we'll reduce the price to 7.50 each. Ah, no, you won't. In the end, they gave me a couple of coins and said that they would look into it.

Idiots. Never, ever, ever going to them again.
 
He he I like that! I had to change my dipped headlight and got grazed knuckles when I got the light out. So I went to my local Halfords and got this kid to place a new one back in. He grazed his knuckles and started f'ing and blinding :devil: :devil:

The best five quid I ever spent!!!

Stan...
 
In the end it was the easy option to undo the three bolts holding the headlight unit to the car. That allowed enough forward movement to get the cover out of the way and remove/replace the bulb.

Any chance someone could please post pictures or describe the location of the three bolts that need to be undone so that a main beam headlight bulb can be replaced?

I can see one on the front of the headlight unit and then one on top of it but have no idea where the third one is located :confused:

Thanks
 
He he I like that! I had to change my dipped headlight and got grazed knuckles when I got the light out. So I went to my local Halfords and got this kid to place a new one back in. He grazed his knuckles and started f'ing and blinding :devil: :devil:

The best five quid I ever spent!!!

Stan...

(y)

Although paying over the odds for bulbs + £5 i'd take the grazed knuckles (tip get some cheap cycling gloves from Tesco) rather than let some monkey do it, just in case they broke something and you didnt notice.
 
Any chance someone could please post pictures or describe the location of the three bolts that need to be undone so that a main beam headlight bulb can be replaced?

I can see one on the front of the headlight unit and then one on top of it but have no idea where the third one is located :confused:

Thanks

really easy to find. open bonnet:

2 bolts on the top of the head light.
1 bolt on the side.

sorry, aint got any pics
 
really easy to find. open bonnet:

2 bolts on the top of the head light.
1 bolt on the side.

sorry, aint got any pics
Whoever had this ingenious idea, I thank you, it worked a treat, no bruises, no swear words and about an inch of extra room to manouver the bulb. Top Thread.

"In the end it was the easy option to undo the three bolts holding the headlight unit to the car. That allowed enough forward movement to get the cover out of the way and remove/replace the bulb."
 
Whoever had this ingenious idea, I thank you, it worked a treat, no bruises, no swear words and about an inch of extra room to manouver the bulb. Top Thread.

"In the end it was the easy option to undo the three bolts holding the headlight unit to the car. That allowed enough forward movement to get the cover out of the way and remove/replace the bulb."

easy aint it,we dont even charge for it as takes literally minutes,just watch you dont catch washer pipes putting cover back on.
 
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