Repair-It

Failed inspection in part due to a burnt out license plate light. I had the bulb, but didn't put it in yet. Naturally you can't just do it from the outside. Here are the steps I took to do the license plate light:
- Remove screw from the hand pocket/door pull on the right side
- Pop out retainers holding trim onto hatch. There are two styles: one style is sort of like the Christmas tree style that is typical on side door panels. There are about 7 along the top of the hatch panel. The rest are the metal style. Just carefully pull them out.
- With the panel precariously hanging, you'll realize there are two harnesses keeping it attached to the car. One is for the auto hatch close button (unplug it) and the other is for the cargo area light (unplug it).
- With the hatch panel down, I immediately saw why the cargo light doesn't work.
There isn't much wire and if you aren't expecting it, the panel will dangle from that harness. It bent the tabs out of the bulb holder and one disconnected even. I did not do this - it was like that from previous work. I tried to plug it back in and push the tab down but then the tab broke off. So I embarked on another ridiculous mission to fix it. I disassembled the lamp assembly and ended up soldering the tab back to the bulb socket. Hopefully it lasts.

But wait, there's more. I didn't even get to the license plate bulbs yet!

- Remove ~5 10mm nuts holding the license plate/backup light assembly to the hatch and pull it out. Pic: - Remove the lamp assembly from the whole plate assembly.
- Untwist bulb socket and replace bulb.
I tested it at this point and it worked.

One note. At first I thought the handle assembly had to come out. So I went to remove those nuts. There were two. I realized to get at the second one, I actually had to remove the entire latch/popper assembly, which was 3 T-30 Torx. That's when I saw this: That nut was cross threaded by someone doing previous work. I tried to remove it but it just spun the stud. I pried on it and did all kinds of stuff but there was no way. That's when I realized that I didn't have to take any of that off. The license plate panel just pops off of the handle bracket. So I sheepishly put all that back. The cross thread was not my fault and was not caused by my idiocy but I didn't have to mess with it, either.

Here's the trim panel down. A shot of my latch stupidity and the bare hatch. Assortment of tools required for this job. I didn't need the torx or the pry bar. That was exclusive to my latch boondoggle. The point is, the cargo light now works for the first time since we bought the car. And the original point of this whole evolution, the license plate bulb now works. So one down, two to go (tires and tie rod). This job cost me zero dollars, or technically the cost of the bulb, which I had already bought a month or two back.

I would think a dealer would charge at least 30 minutes labor for this job. Took me more like 2 hours with everything that I did.

I forgot to mention one part.

For reassembly, to ease hatch panel installation I popped the cargo/courtesy light out of the panel and when installing the hatch panel I made sure the harness stuck through the hole. Then when the panel was secure I simply plugged it in and snapped it into the panel. Probably the way they assembled it in the first place. I had some difficulty installing the panel, mainly from the upper retainers and I surely would have broken my solder repair when the panel slipped and yanked on that wire.

I would sell this stupid vehicle before another bulb goes out and you lose another weekend of your life...

Well it didn't cost me a weekend. It was like 11-1pm on a Sunday. Then I did an (overdue, 6,000 mile) oil change on my Caprice which took me to about 5pm by the time I was done with everything. Also Ian was in the garage with me for most of this work which means the time was authorized. I even had my propane heater going. And music.

You don't seem to understand. Not only would I NOT want to swap this "trouble" for a car payment, but I wouldn't want to swap this vehicle for a boring 4 cylinder appliance that I hate. I am good with the current compromise. In fact we are both good. Maybe you have a different situation, but there is no point during the headlight saga, wheel bearing replacement, or any of this recent bulb work where my wife is like "unacceptable - let's replace this vehicle." Car maintenance has always been implicitly authorized, especially when she knows that the actual cost is very modest. There is no more economical way to have a nice vehicle like this than the way I am doing it, period.

Your Mazda 3 needed shocks at the same mileage (and blows headlight bulbs) - I think a $50 tie rod is well within reason. Yes it has more expensive tires and yes labor for a lot of things is more than the average vehicle. This is exactly what I signed up for. I regret nothing.

I think you are generalizing more than I said. This particular vehicle seems to be way overcomplicated for what should be minor repairs. I wasn't saying sell it and buy a 50,000 vehicle. I am pretty sure you don't need to completely disassemble the rear hatch or remove the bumper from a Tahoe to replace a lightbulb. That is all I was saying.

Yes you make the choice to deal with more breaking because you demand to drive a "luxury" vehicle. That is a choice.

Also, poor Ian for the music you made him listen to...

I wouldn't make any assumptions on repair complexity. If anything, I think the complexity may be just as influenced by the age as the "luxury" nature of the vehicle.

I mean, we discovered on your 3 that if you had HIDs, the replacement is pretty much exactly as involved as it is on the SRX. For bulbs, it has needed a passenger side HID low beam. The driver's side issue was a soaked ballast and that is working now with zero parts replacement.

I agree it is annoying I had to pull all that crap for a license plate bulb but I am certainly not going to get rid of the vehicle over it.

I wish it had more LED bulbs - if this works out to be a bulb burnout factory, I will probably look into LEDs. It actually doesn't have many - only the tail lights and 3rd brake light are LED.

billgiacheri wrote:Yes you make the choice to deal with more breaking because you demand to drive a "luxury" vehicle. That is a choice.

I wouldn't phrase it quite that way but yes. If you look back in the Malibu replacement thread, there were never any hard requirements for getting something in the luxury segment. I had been eying an 04-07 Malibu Maxx for the longest time, far from a luxury car. It just kind of happened and I was familiar with these from helping my brother in law find one 4 years prior or whenever it was. I also know it is on the Sigma platform so I guess there was some familiarity there. It's either a CTS crossover or an STS crossover depending on how you look at it. Probably more like an STS crossover, because it is on the STS wheelbase and has AWD like the STS had available (the CTS did not), the Northstar (same), and the 6L50 trans (CTS didn't get this until the 08 2nd gen).

But if you read here again: http://forums.kevinallenmoore.com/viewt ... =110#p4282

It is pretty clear that there is likely no more economical way to drive something like this, when you look at all the comfort, convenience and performance it offers. You may not value some or all of these things, but I do. We paid $14,500 (minus $600 Malibu trade, so $13,900). I am not claiming it is the most economical way for my wife to drive a vehicle that can transport her and our children. Clearly right away the fuel mileage is mediocre (17.5 mpg combined on premium) so there's more going on here than just cheap transportation.

kevm14 wrote: - With the hatch panel down, I immediately saw why the cargo light doesn't work.

There isn't much wire and if you aren't expecting it, the panel will dangle from that harness. It bent the tabs out of the bulb holder and one disconnected even. I did not do this - it was like that from previous work. I tried to plug it back in and push the tab down but then the tab broke off. So I embarked on another ridiculous mission to fix it. I disassembled the lamp assembly and ended up soldering the tab back to the bulb socket. Hopefully it lasts.

So my fix failed. The solder gave up because I think when the hatch is repeatedly closed, it just vibrates too much. I was going to order a replacement lamp assembly but new is like $40-50 and I couldn't find anything used on eBay anyway. So I dug in at the vehicle to see if I could do anything else other than my previous repair.

First, I removed the lens which was easy. I remember from last time thinking that I had to remove the interior hatch panel to gain access to the lamp assembly but you do not. At all. I simply pried on two tabs which released the assembly from the hatch panel. That was easy. Inside I confirmed that my solder repair had failed.

Not wanting to give up that easily, I devised a plan. I wish I took pictures. Anyway, what I did was remove the offending lamp terminal from the assembly. Then I actually cut one end of it and simply slid the connector over that and snapped it back into the assembly. Put the bulb back, snap the assembly back into the hatch panel and snap the lens back on. Fixed. Took me like 10 minutes including looking at it, getting my trim panel tools out, etc. That was highly satisfying and I think it will last the rest of the life of the vehicle. Sometimes taking a second, different look at something can make a big difference.

I thought a few pictures would be helpful.

The fix I did is on the left terminal. The whole operation. If you zoom in on the left terminal you can see how it is actually connected to a piece of the bulb socket on the side rather than in the middle as with the one on the right. And a bonus pic that probably doesn't help that much.