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Low beam failure, replacing bulbs doesn't work.

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Durenol
Posts: 172
Joined: 28 Dec 2017, 18:25
Year and Model: Volvo 2007
Location: US
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Post by Durenol »

2007 XC70. Started the car to run an errand and got a warning on the dash of a low beam failure, but both of them were on and working. Started the car at the store to drive back and got the same warning, but this time the driver's side low beam was out. I've swapped in two separate bulbs and none of them work. All the other bulbs (highbeam, blinkers, etc) on that side work fine, and jiggling the wires has no effect. Any ideas?

EngineeringBloke
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Joined: 08 Sep 2012, 19:31
Year and Model: 2006 2.5T S60
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Post by EngineeringBloke »

I was able to insert my driver's side low beam bulb at an angle before placing it correctly. This bent the metal reflector that is close to the bulb.

After a while I realized that the reflector was affecting the light from the bulb. I used an old bulb to reshape the reflector but while it was out of position, it had been touching the hot bulb and conducting heat back to the plastic bulb socket. The socket was burned and no longer held the connection wires in place. This resulted in the bulb being out, although the bulb itself was fine. At first, the issue was intermittent.

I have just replaced the bulb socket with a new socket with 4 inch wire tails. I cut off the bad socket close to the socket for a working length of wire. I stripped the end of the wires and crimped them to the new socket using 2 butt connectors.

There were two wires going to one side of the old socket. This turned out to be a common connection to the driver's low beam and an adjacent bulb. In order to have enough length of wire to perform the splice, I unscrewed that second bulb.

Great to have 2 low beams again.

This is the replacement socket I used:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01GRIG5WK

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