whopper

As time goes by, with more experience you will gain confidence to tackle new stuff. It's a lot of fun - hang in there. Some of us learned thru training on the job - and some like me, thru having to do it oneself cause they had no $'s to pay others to do it years ago. LOL But with a couple of engine rebuilds, numerous clutch and brake jobs in the past it's all good tho'.

1970judge

You took it to the dealership?

I have it down to about 10 minutes. It's not nearly as hard as it 'seems'

HHRNole

Changing the bulb isn't that hard if you've done it before. I also have my air filter inside the driver's side fender behind the headlight.To change or clean it,the wheel has to come off. Just a little harder than changing the bulb

helhedded

My driver side went out yesterday morning so I stopped by Advance and picked up some Silverstars. I figured that I wasn't going to waste time with fancy aftermarket halogens like I did with my previous car. If I wanted an upgrade I would have ordered a HID kit. The silverstars were on sale too, so I couldn't pass it up.

I used:

2 h13 silverstars
flat head screw driver
needle nose pliers
9/32 socket and/or 7mm nut driver
alcohol for cleaning my dirty prints off of the new bulbs


I left my wheels on for all of this. I can see how it would be much easier to do this with the wheels off, but taking your wheels off to change a frickin headlight seems a little impractical to me. The 3 fasteners popped out fine and went back in with no problems. The 3 bolts were easy too. I just bent back the liner a bit and reached up in there to change the light. I removed the rubber gaskets from the new lights since the stock red ones stayed on the headlight assembly when I removed the blown bulb. The passenger side was more difficult than the driver side, but I could tell that there was less room to work with.


Thanks to this forum I had no problems.

GDZHHR

My wife had one go out this week. Of course it had to happen during winter. Just for *****s I called the dealer to see what they'd charge. Woman in service dept put me on hold, came back and said $14.95. I asked her again, making sure she knew I was asking about a 2006 Chevy HHR, told her I thought it was a pain to do, she put me on hold, asked somebody else, told me $14.95 and said that a tech told her that the 06 wasn't too bad.

I got her name, and asked when I could bring it in. dropped it off tonight! Having both changed as long as it's there. The service writer was very suprised when he heard what I was quoted, but still wrote is up as $30 labor to change both! God was smiling at me today.

Lonewolf_ict

I bought some H13 8500K blue bulbs off Ebay the other night got them for 4.99 LOL now all I need to do is be brave and put them in wonder how blue bulbs will look....

malibuhhr

after 120,000 km my '07 HHR blew it's LF headlight bulb. This forum was so helpful I decided to join and post a few pics in this thread.

I picked up a $9 tool at Canadian Tire, it works great and saves those little fasteners so you can reuse them. By gently rocking these fasteners back and forth they come out easily and without stripping them:

malibuhhr

use a vice-grip on the 3 sheet metal screws:


[IMG]<a href="http://s51.photobucket.com/albums/f377/malibu66/HHR/?action=view&amp;current=HHRheadlampbulbchange6.jp g" target="_blank"><img src="http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f377/malibu66/HHR/HHRheadlampbulbchange6.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>[/IMG]


[IMG]<a href="http://s51.photobucket.com/albums/f377/malibu66/HHR/?action=view&amp;current=HHRheadlampbulbchange7.jp g" target="_blank"><img src="http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f377/malibu66/HHR/HHRheadlampbulbchange7.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>[/IMG]

and under the bumper:

<a href="http://s51.photobucket.com/albums/f377/malibu66/HHR/?action=view&amp;current=HHRheadlampbulbchange8.jp g" target="_blank"><img src="http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f377/malibu66/HHR/HHRheadlampbulbchange8.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

I pulled fasteners all the way around the arch until I could pull down the inner fender:

[IMG]<a href="http://s51.photobucket.com/albums/f377/malibu66/HHR/?action=view&amp;current=HHRheadlampbulbchange9.jp g" target="_blank"><img src="http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f377/malibu66/HHR/HHRheadlampbulbchange9.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>[/IMG]

easy access to both bulbs and the fog light (if installed):

[IMG]<a href="http://s51.photobucket.com/albums/f377/malibu66/HHR/?action=view&amp;current=HHRheadlampbulbchange10.j pg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f377/malibu66/HHR/HHRheadlampbulbchange10.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>[/IMG]

In Canada there are two bulbs, the Sylvania $14 "H13" (below) and the Bosch $25 "9008". Does anyone know the average longevity on each?

<a href="http://s51.photobucket.com/albums/f377/malibu66/HHR/?action=view&amp;current=HHRheadlampbulbchange12.j pg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f377/malibu66/HHR/HHRheadlampbulbchange12.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

to remove the bulb from the socket, DO NOT make this mistake:

<a href="http://s51.photobucket.com/albums/f377/malibu66/HHR/?action=view&amp;current=HHRheadlampbulbchange13.j pg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f377/malibu66/HHR/HHRheadlampbulbchange13.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

the socket requires some effort to remove and I could not ascertain if there is some clip or lock on it, but it eventually just popped off.

be careful not to touch the new bulb or your fingerprint will fry and the bulb will burn out within minutes:

[IMG]<a href="http://s51.photobucket.com/albums/f377/malibu66/HHR/?action=view&amp;current=HHRheadlampbulbchange11.j pg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f377/malibu66/HHR/HHRheadlampbulbchange11.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>[/IMG]

test the new bulb and check its aim against a wall:

<a href="http://s51.photobucket.com/albums/f377/malibu66/HHR/?action=view&amp;current=HHRheadlampbulbchange15.j pg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f377/malibu66/HHR/HHRheadlampbulbchange15.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

solman98

Your pics in the second post are not showing up.

malibuhhr

there seems to be a quota on images. I'll try posting them one at a time:

use a vice-grip on the 3 sheet metal screws:


[IMG][/IMG]