Corsa D 2007 Design - Changing a headlight bulb | Technical matters | Back Room Forum

Sun 27 Feb 2011 18:43

Corsa D 2007 Design - Changing a headlight bulb - Galad

SWMBO's Corsa (new shape) needs a new headlight on driver's side. Handbook indicates straightforward disconnect of hose feeding air filter but ignores the fact that the air filter housing itself just happens to be in the way of the access to the headlight chamber. Halford's guy was very helpful but completely stumped.

Anyone any ideas before I bite the bullet and offer it up to the dealer on top of the series of 02 sensors and other electronic failures that this money-pit amounts to, please?

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Sun 27 Feb 2011 18:56

Corsa D 2007 Design - Changing a headlight bulb - 659FBE

This is a really crappy piece of design. To change the dipped lamp on the LH side the bumper and headlamp have to come out.

If you are dexterous, to do the RH lamp remove the air inlet trunk (one screw) and loosen the worm drive hose clip at the air filter box outlet. Disconnect the pipe at the join and pull the entire air filter box out of the car - it fits on 3 barbs in rubber bushed holes.

The access is lousy, but manoevre the rear cover off the lamp (it doesn't fit properly and will be loose) then pull out the H7 dipped bulb - there's no retaining clip. You will find that, incredibly, the levelling motor within the lamp gets in the way. Reassembly is the reverse...

Designs like this should be disallowed. No wonder there are so many one-eyed vehicles on the road. Shame on you GM (but then I'll never ever forgive you for wrecking SAAB).

659.

Edited by 659FBE on 27/02/2011 at 18:57

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Sun 27 Feb 2011 19:05

Corsa D 2007 Design - Changing a headlight bulb - Galad

Many thanks 659; I'll give it a go.

I agree, it's so stupid for a modern car to be designed in such a way as to prevent owners from carrying out a routine bulb change. Will never take this car to France for fear of heavy fines despite carrying a spare bulb kit!

I call this car 'Curser'.

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Tue 5 Feb 2013 21:23

Corsa D 2007 Design - Changing a headlight bulb - focussed

I live in France and there is no legal requirement to carry a spare bulb kit, it's merely advisory. A lot of old cars here only have one one headlamp working - doesn't seem to be a problem.

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Thu 24 Jan 2013 08:53

Corsa D 2007 Design - Changing a headlight bulb - craig-pd130

I did this job yesterday evening on my wife's Corsa. What a palaver. Crappy design is understating the case.

It was just possible to do the job without removing the entire airbox, although the inlet snorkel does need to be removed. Having done it, i'm not sure that removing the airbox makes the job much easier.

The problem isn't so much access to the bulb & holder, but replacing the rear lamp cover once the bulb has been swapped. As 659 says, the cover doesn't fit properly in the first place, and there is so little room around it, which makes it difficult to locate the securing tang in its slot.

It took around 40 minutes of fiddling and cursing. Only skinned one knuckle though, so it could've been worse :)

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Mon 4 Feb 2013 03:22

Corsa D 2007 Design - Changing a headlight bulb - 1litregolfeater

Did it today, but it was a Corsa C. It just slipped right on in there, no problems or drama.

So why am I posting this rubbish I hear you ask. Because it makes you wonder why they make it harder when they already knew how to make it easy.

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Mon 4 Feb 2013 07:11

Corsa D 2007 Design - Changing a headlight bulb - Chris79

I changed the n/s headlight recently on my corsa d. Whilst I'm not disagreeing with any of the comments wrt access the the job can be done with the light unit in place. As for the offside, I haven't had to do this yet, but am not looking forwards to it!.

Headlamp design is something that I think has gone down the plug hole recently. Apparently an insignia does actually the require the bumper off to change a headlight ( possibly the most stupid bit of design I have heard of).

Worse still though is this relentless march to higher powered lights. Xenons sound great until they go wrong and then how much does it cost. It's the same with the led drl s fitted to many cars. When questioning whether these were covered as part of kias 7 year warranty I was assured that they don't break, thus they don't need to be covered......

I ended up buying a lower spec car to try and Avoid some of this expensive trinketry that will ed up costing an arm and a leg in years to come.

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Mon 4 Feb 2013 13:46

Corsa D 2007 Design - Changing a headlight bulb - madf

Seriously look at teh design of the Meriva .. access is appalling.

GM and Renault cut corners and produce carp.

If you buy cars from carp makers, you get what you pay for.

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Mon 4 Feb 2013 15:21

Corsa D 2007 Design - Changing a headlight bulb - MarcS

I went through the pain with this a few weeks back, honestly. they must make it harder just so they force you to take it to a vauxhall dealer!

You cannot do it on your own. Thats for certain. I removed the air filter and I had to get someones elses help to pull the air filter housing away whilst I was installing the new bulbs.

A lot of people are suggesting that removing the front bumper allows for easier access but I was worried incase I couldn't get the bumper back on again properly so I didn't bother.

All in all, a bulb change which shouldn't take no more than 10-15 minutes took about 3 hours!

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Tue 5 Feb 2013 10:33

Corsa D 2007 Design - Changing a headlight bulb - Robin the Technician

Hi,

You've all missed the point about removing the bumper. I thought what a stupid design it is to need to take the bumper off to get the headlight out - and still do. However, it takes about 20 minutes to do the complete job and I found that removing one side bolts/ screws etc was enough to pull the bumper forward enough to get the headlight out. It's certainly easier than struggling to get the bulb out from inside (only a gynacologist could do it).

Robin the Technician - I fix, therefore I am

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Sat 27 Apr 2013 15:52

Corsa D 2007 Design - Changing a headlight bulb - PN5744

Hello

In full agreement with you here, front bumper off is by far the easiest method. You can mess about for ages trying other ways, but 20mins removing 13 easily accessible self tapping screws is far less frustrating !

We have two 2010 Corsa diesels as pool cars and I have carried out this procedure a number of times. A set of Torx allen keys and an 8mm socket is all you need.

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Sun 28 Apr 2013 00:09

Corsa D 2007 Design - Changing a headlight bulb - 1litregolfeater

Until the car's a few years old and the bumper screws are dirty, rusty and worn out.

I can't wait for all those shiny low mileage Corsas getting scrapped when they fail the MOT.

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