Agonized over whether to post here or in the Punto 2012 section. As there seems to be more people looking here and this might apply to other models decided to go here.
My oldest boy has a 2012 "new" Punto 1.4 eight valve. I noticed, a couple of weeks ago that the NSR side light was out. I keep spare bulbs so said to my boy to call round sometime and we'll replace it - not realising it's LED! Anyway, quickly found out it wasn't a normal bulb! Local main dealer said "non repairable, built in unit, new lamp unit needed!" Didn't believe him, sounded unlikely. But of course he was right as the local independent Honda guy confirmed. Looked it up on Shop4parts, £66.02. they quote retail at £101.00 so good saving but still a lot of money also they're temporarily out of stock. Started looking around on Google and YouTube for "cheap fixes" but no luck. Then searched our forum as I vaguely remember having seen something about it a while ago. By the way, at some time during this we noticed that when it was dark you could see a slight glow from the unit. In daylight it looked totally done in with no light visible.
Back to the computer, and there it was, "cook it with a hair dryer!" or words to that effect. So earlier this afternoon I removed the lamp unit, stripped out the bulb holder fixture and got my boy to play Mrs Jock's hair dryer on it (medium heat), blowing the air inside the unit whilst I investigated a clunk from the NSF which turned out to be slight play in the track rod end and checked the gearbox oil level. He has a small leak in the NS gearbox driveshaft seal which will need doing soon but until then I'm just keeping a good eye on it. The rod end of course is being done tomorrow if I can pick one up from the factor in the morning. There was no obvious signs of water ingress or condensation in the lamp unit and the connectors were in good condition. The circuit board can be partially seen if you look inside and it looked good with no obvious signs of water, or any other, damage.
I think it probably took around 20 minutes for my creaky old body to do the above checking. My boy was playing the hair dryer into the lamp unit all this while. When I'd finished doing my checks I reassembled the bulb holder and wiring connectors and examined the water seal on the back of the unit - which was in good order. The whole unit was then fixed back into the car. We held our breaths and flipped, well ok twisted, the switch. YoooHooo! It works! My boy had his family, wife and youngster, with him and Mrs Jock whipped up a lovely dinner for us all so it was about 3 hours before they headed off home (youngster's bedtime) and I was wondering if the lamp unit would still work now it was cold? But it was fine and still working as they disappeared round the corner at the bottom of our street.
So I would just like to say a massive great THANK YOU to the person who posted this "cure" and to ask anyone who has done this - how long did it continue to function? In other words I'm wondering is this a cure or just a temporary reprieve? Needless to say my lad is going to check it each time he turns the lights on now.
My oldest boy has a 2012 "new" Punto 1.4 eight valve. I noticed, a couple of weeks ago that the NSR side light was out. I keep spare bulbs so said to my boy to call round sometime and we'll replace it - not realising it's LED! Anyway, quickly found out it wasn't a normal bulb! Local main dealer said "non repairable, built in unit, new lamp unit needed!" Didn't believe him, sounded unlikely. But of course he was right as the local independent Honda guy confirmed. Looked it up on Shop4parts, £66.02. they quote retail at £101.00 so good saving but still a lot of money also they're temporarily out of stock. Started looking around on Google and YouTube for "cheap fixes" but no luck. Then searched our forum as I vaguely remember having seen something about it a while ago. By the way, at some time during this we noticed that when it was dark you could see a slight glow from the unit. In daylight it looked totally done in with no light visible.
Back to the computer, and there it was, "cook it with a hair dryer!" or words to that effect. So earlier this afternoon I removed the lamp unit, stripped out the bulb holder fixture and got my boy to play Mrs Jock's hair dryer on it (medium heat), blowing the air inside the unit whilst I investigated a clunk from the NSF which turned out to be slight play in the track rod end and checked the gearbox oil level. He has a small leak in the NS gearbox driveshaft seal which will need doing soon but until then I'm just keeping a good eye on it. The rod end of course is being done tomorrow if I can pick one up from the factor in the morning. There was no obvious signs of water ingress or condensation in the lamp unit and the connectors were in good condition. The circuit board can be partially seen if you look inside and it looked good with no obvious signs of water, or any other, damage.
I think it probably took around 20 minutes for my creaky old body to do the above checking. My boy was playing the hair dryer into the lamp unit all this while. When I'd finished doing my checks I reassembled the bulb holder and wiring connectors and examined the water seal on the back of the unit - which was in good order. The whole unit was then fixed back into the car. We held our breaths and flipped, well ok twisted, the switch. YoooHooo! It works! My boy had his family, wife and youngster, with him and Mrs Jock whipped up a lovely dinner for us all so it was about 3 hours before they headed off home (youngster's bedtime) and I was wondering if the lamp unit would still work now it was cold? But it was fine and still working as they disappeared round the corner at the bottom of our street.
So I would just like to say a massive great THANK YOU to the person who posted this "cure" and to ask anyone who has done this - how long did it continue to function? In other words I'm wondering is this a cure or just a temporary reprieve? Needless to say my lad is going to check it each time he turns the lights on now.
