Your car headlights are one of the most important safety features you have, especially at night. They make it possible to see obstacles and turns in the road well ahead of time so you can travel at daylight speeds. It would be hard to argue that anything is more important at night, even if features like the brakes are equally important. Thinking about it that way, it only makes sense to keep a spare headlight in your emergency road kit.
Advantages of Carrying A Spare Headlight
Headlights don’t burn out very frequently unless there’s an issue with the electrical system, so you don’t usually have to worry about replacing them more than once every few years. At the same time, you never know when they will actually burn out, so unless you bought your car new or replaced all the lights after buying it, you don’t really know how long you have on the estimated lifespan, let alone the real one. Why run the risk of driving with half-dark headlights if you can avoid it? Advantages of a quick replacement include:
- Avoiding traffic stops due to malfunctioning lights
- Increased night time driving safety
- Opportunity to save money on bulbs by purchasing during sales and clearance specials
If you have to buy a bulb to replace a light that’s already broken, you don’t have as much opportunity to shop for the price you actually want. The longer it goes unrepaired, the greater the chance of an accident or ticket. Just check for sales on replacement bulbs whenever you order oil filters or other supplies, then add a couple to your order if you are down to your last one at home.
How To Change a Car Headlight
Most of the time, you can change a headlight without any tools. Some cars might have a screw or two to loosen before accessing the headlights, but many do not. At most, this operation takes a screwdriver.
- Make sure the vehicle is off and the keys are out of the ignition
- Open the engine compartment
- Locate the headlights by finding the wires connecting them to the battery
- Unplug those wires
- On the off chance there is a screw securing the rear of the bulb to the car body, remove it
- Headlight bulbs twist to lock in place, so twist to unscrew it from its seating and pull the bulb back into the engine compartment to remove it
- Place the new bulb and twist it into position
- Plug in the wires
- Power up the car and make sure the lights work
That should be all it takes to change a bulb on the fly. Rear lights might be more work because they often have to be unmounted as full fixtures, but even then it is a few screws to loosen the fixture enough that you can disconnect it by unplugging the wires.
Choosing the Right Headlight Replacement
If you’re not sure which bulbs fit your vehicle and the manufacturer had a few different options packages with different lighting needs, the best way to get answers is by pulling the VIN off your car and decoding it. You can have that done at any store with a free VIN decoder service. Sometimes dedicated home mechanics even invest in a machine for themselves.
