Man ( and woman ) had the technology to put a man on the moon in 1969, since then, car tech has moved forward at an incredible pace, cars now have every conceivable convenience, like Sat nav, tyre pressure sensors, air con you name it, all to make owning and driving a car a pleasurable experience, except when it comes to doing a simple job like changing the bloody headlight bulbs on a mk3.
Wheels off, undoing old fixings,pulling the liners about, I cant believe the designers thought that this is acceptable, surely a few re designed bits and pieces under the bonnet would make enough room to get a hand in to change the bulbs, but no, with all the modern tech available they couldnt get their heads around that one.
Its not just Mazda, there’s other car makers that do it too, or maybe I am just turning into Victor Meldrew
Unless of course there is an easy way which I dont know about , in which case …sorry
It seems to be “par for the course” so to speak for all makes!!  You seem to need to remove the front half of the car, maybe the engine (with the car upside down!) and suspension as well just to do a relatively minor job!!! They call it “progress”!!!
£760 ! Jeez, thats progress? ,now I know why I enjoyed owning the Triumph Spitfire all those years ago, hopefully Mazda will maintain its reputation for reliability , so these issues will be a rare ocurrance , although for me I would still like brighter bulbs, so I will just have to bite the bullet , jack the car up and have a go
I have  already been down the Braker’s yard and had bits off 2 NDs starting to get a nice little bit of stock built up for the years a head they got me on speed dial if they get something of interest in and its cheep as long as I take it off…! they would not let me have the wheels though but there only £100.00 each from Mazda looks as if I saved £680.00 for lights then LOL and thats for a full set front and REAR
Even I could change the bulbs on my MG Midget , Escort GT etc etc via sundry hot hatches right up to a Peugeot 306 - which was beyond me . As has also been the case on every car since then. But ease of bulb replacement doesn’t compensate for the fact that 95% of headlights were utterly useless back then , with some cars’ lights being dangerously poor.
My Yeti has swivelly Xenons , and my ND has swivelly - dunno - are they LEDs ? But both are superb
Well I suppose you pay your money and take your choice, a lot of car makers are doing it now,.
A small consumable product like a bulb ,which takes seconds to unclip ,now turns into a right rigmorol to replace ,so you either struggle yourself or pay for the garage to do it, which is probably part of the reason why they make it so awkward in the first place. Â
However, in my experience bulbs these days seem to last a lot longer. I’m not worried about it.Â
Looking over my records I only replaced the headlights once in my Astra at about 100,000 miles and the replacements were still OK at 205,000. The rear sidelights were wrongly specced and used to silver over inside in only about nine thousand miles of daily driving, twice in the first year and picked up at the service each time, lower power replacements then lasted the remaining life of the car.
The Vextra’s dip beams failed within hours of each other at about fourteen years old and the replacements and original mains were still OK when scrapped at twenty years old. Both lens units cracked off their inadequate mountings about halfway through the car’s life, but I just transferred all the bulbs across to the replacements.
All the bulbs in the NC are now eleven years old but only 31,000 miles and all OK.
The Mazda3 has the Hi-voltage discharge projectors with a solenoid operated shutter for the dip, and is festooned by all the warnings about hazardous replacement, no wonder they make them difficult on some cars, but in this instance there is so much room under the bonnet it is a doddle should I need to. With the mileage we do I expect the car will outlast me, and probably the lamps will too. Most likely is that the moving part of a solenoid shutter might stick first through simple old age before a projector bulb fails from exceeding operational lifetime.
On my Wifes Jag X Type estate there is just enough room to change the bulbs in the headlights if you are 5 years old and have fingers like ET.
Oh, and after about 10 years. the internal plastic parts start to fail, and the whole headlight internals start to flop about, if you have to change a bulb…its such a common event that there aftermarket alloy internals now available…you only have to remove the front bumper, remove the headlights ( that’s when the small m6 bolts shear off ) split the headlight units, replace the internals with the alloy ones you have paid 5p for…then put it all together again.
Tyre pressure sensors are nothing more than a gimmick! Air has moisture in it which will affect the pressure as temperature changes - Boyle’s law gives you the relationship between pressure, heat and volume. Unless you’re filling your tyres with Nitrogen or another of the noble gasses the pressure is going to change a little just by driving - if you can’t tell a tyres going down or flat from the feedback from how the car is driving you shouldn’t have a driving licence!
I agree, I’ve never owned a car with tyre sensors, although I might do one day, because if it comes as standard with a car then so be it, but we had loads of fun in the Spitfire and some great holidays with 70s technology, but there you go, horses for courses, I have very fond memories of those days, but wouldn’t swap my MK3 now as I’m having a load more fun and enjoyment with 2006 technology …except for changing the headlight bulbs
I disagree - I think they are very useful for most drivers , especially for slow punctures . And the fact that someone can’t detect the drop doesn’t make them bad drivers per se . It’s useful to recall who was using them first - Porsche at Le Mans in the 956 , if memory serves . And I wouldn’t call either Derk Bell or Jacky Ickx too shabby behind the wheel…
I could tell if a tyre was even 2 or 3 psi out on my Caterhams but on daily drivers ? Nah -cars like my old Tiguan felt exactly the same until a big drop in psi .