Mk5 Polo Headlight "HELP"

[stu nwpoc]

Hello, over the space of the last 3 weeks both my headlight bulbs have blown, not thinking anything of it i bought some descent replacements to put in (50% Brighter and all that cr*p) and a week later one of them has blown again !!!!! so off i go again to buy another descent bulb, p*ss about dismantling the back of the head light with great difficulty to change the bulb and i notice the whole of the inside of the light housing (the shiney bit at the back of the lens that the light reflects off) is loose and moving about all over the place !!!

The only thing holding it is the mechanism that adjusts the lights from the scroll thingy inside the car on the dash to move the lights up and down (please tell me you are still with me on this) so all i can assume is because this is loose that is what has caused the bulb to vibrate and blow again ?!?!?!?!

Can ANYONE give me any help or advise on what to do now (i havent replaced the bulb coz i don't want to have to go out and spend £17.99 on yet another headlight bulb if it blows again)

[paulm72]

Hi.
I have similar problem on my 1.4TDI Polo but without the bulbs blowing. The reflective backing is loose on my passenger side headlight unit but the driver side is ok.

To investigate the problem, I had to remove the front bumper in order to remove the headlight unit. On inspection, the reason the reflective backing was loose is because one of the plastic brackets (inside headlight unit) for the height adjustment was broken.

I can only imagine that this happened as a result of hitting a pothole, which are quite plentiful in the north west of ireland.

I think a new headlight unit would fix the problem in my case but i've decided to leave that for another time and installed the broken headlight unit again.

As a result i notice vibrations in the headlight when going over rough surfaces at night but apart from that it's working fine so i'll put up with it for the time being.

I used to have problems with bulbs constantly blowing when using cheap (Carlex??) bulbs but the situation has improved since using Ring Auto Bulbs.

In your case you're not using cheap bulbs so maybe the vibrations are causing the bulbs to blow.

If you can remove your headlight unit and check inside to see if brackets broken, in which case you might need to get new unit.

Hope this is of some help.

Gluck

[stu nwpoc]

Cheers mate, that is very useful, seems strange that i also have a 1.4TDI doing the same thing !?!?! I will keep you informed

[JWC]

Nah, its most likely that the plastic clip that attaches to the headlight motor (range control) has popped out. It *can* be popped back in again. This happens when you or someone else has pushed too hard on the back of the unit when putting a connector on the back of a bulb.

If you take the back off and have a look you'll see a yellowy white nylon thing. Its that. I think its mentioned in the DIY Xenon 62N section on this site.

If the reflector is not connected to the motor, then the alignment of the whole assembly will be miles out and it will fail MOT or just annoy oncoming traffic, although I would presume its designed failure mode would be to point down.

Either way, you should get it fixed. And the vibration is probably what is causing your bulbs to give up, that and you have a oil burner.

[stu nwpoc]

The headlight itself was knackered, took it off today and put a sparkly nice new one on

[JWC]

Good good. I have two headlights under my desk here! I think I will keep them and swap at MOT time, just in case they get shirty about my gas units...