Change fog light bulb om protege 5?

Answer 1

In order to change a fog light bulb, you will need to completely remove the front bumper. Once the bumper is off, you can remove and replace the bulb in the light housing. The whole job took me about 30 minutes...

Is certainly one way to do it, but not the only way. You can also do it just getting underneath with a #13 wrench and a Phillips screwdriver. Step by step can be found here:

http://www.msprotege.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3660

Before you begin, you should disconnect the battery, I didn't but it is a good general policy when dealing with anything electrical.
I found this job easier to do with the car up on a jack and the wheel turned out (before jacking up). You can do on the ground, but you will need short handled tools.

1st, you will need to remove the screws holding the bottom plastic bumper guard. I also removed the bottom two on the wheel well to give me enough room to bend the plastic housing away.


Once out of the way, you can get at the fog light housing retention nut with a #14 crescent or socket wrench.


I am showing you the wire housing clip you will need to remove after you do the next step (just so you know what you're looking at).


After you have removed the nut, washer, and split washer, go to the front of the fog lamp and slide out and tilt to the side (towards center of car) so that you can see a little blue plastic holding clip. It has been advised to take care to make sure that the lamp does not fall out in this process; which sounds like a wise precaution.



Once you have access to the blue nib, pinch down with a pair of needle nosed pliers on the top and bottom and push through.

This will release the wire housing clip. Pinch the top portion and remove.


Now carefully remove lamp from the bumper and place on something that wont scratch the glass.

Remove the two screws on the left and right side of the lamp.


Now I did the next two steps backward from how I think it should be, so do as I say, (the first pic will show the second step already done).

Once you pry the glass carefully out you will see the back of the bulb assembly. First remove the bulb wire from the connector housing.


Then release the spring clip by pusing in and towards the center of the bulb. While you are doing this, you can hold onto the wire going to the bulb to stabilize it, as when you release the clip, the bulb will want to fall to the side (and we don't want any broken bulbs in the lamp).