When one of your headlight bulbs burns out, it creates a three-pronged effect: your car looks decidedly cheaper, you become a magnet for a police officer looking to hit their ticket quota, and lower visibility at night makes driving riskier. Thankfully, replacing a headlight bulb is one of the easiest vehicle maintenance procedures anyone can pull off.
Easy doesn’t mean that you can fly blind. You’ll still need a few tools and will need to be able to at least loosely understand what’s going on under your hood. The Drive’s editors can get you started on this journey and will help you get a feel for what’s involved with the process. Let’s jump in.
Estimated Time Needed: 15 minutes to an hour, depending on how hidden the headlight units are
Skill Level: Beginner
Vehicle System: Electrical/lighting
Replacing a headlight is not a high-risk situation, but it never hurts to be proactive about protection. Any time you work in the engine bay and handle the battery, it's a good idea to wear gloves and eye protection. When working on electronics, it's a also good idea to disconnect the battery. Here's the protection we use:
Changing a headlight doesn’t take much more than your own two hands, but these are the tools you might need along the way:
The process of changing a headlight varies slightly depending on the type of vehicle, but there are a few universal steps that everyone has to follow. It’s recommended that you change both headlights at the same time to maintain even light, but nobody’s going to yell at you if you don’t.
Note: This process applies to the replacement of traditional headlights. If your vehicle uses Xenon or LED headlights, your process might look a little different.
With the car turned off and cooled down, disconnect the battery for safety purposes.
In some cars, you might need to remove the battery to gain better access to the headlight bulb. In other cars, you'll need to move fluid tubes or containers, such as the windshield washer plastic. Make it so you have easy access to the bulbs. The last thing you want to do is damage a part or drop the bulbs into the engine bay.
The process to access the headlight enclosure is different for every vehicle, but it starts at the back of the headlight housing. Identify the plug and disconnect it from the headlight bulb. In certain vehicles, you could also twist the connector and the bulb out of the housing, then remove the bulb.
While avoiding touching the bulb with your bare hands, use the base of the new bulb to plug it in. Make sure it sits correctly.
Once you have the new bulb in, situate and secure it back into the headlight housing, plug it back into the connector, replace anything you moved or removed, and reconnect the battery. Make sure everything is tightened back up
Turn on both high and low beams to ensure the bulbs are working. When it's dark, make sure the bulbs sit correctly and evenly distribute the light.
The above info covers the task of changing a bulb in general terms, but we wanted to give you a more detailed explanation, as well. This is the process for replacing the bulbs on Tony's 2003 Acura RSX.
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You have questions., The Drive has answers!
A. Most people, regardless of skill level, will be able to find the headlights and replace them without issue. Certain vehicle manufacturers have made reaching the headlights difficult by placing tons of vehicle components in front of them, but it should be relatively easy to change a bulb.
A. If you need professional help, you can count on paying around $50 to have the bulbs changed. That cost can be more if you have LED or specially designed headlights.
A. In general, you should be able to count on at least 2,000 to 3,000 hours from a headlight bulb. Newer designs that use Xenon or LED bulbs are capable of lasting much longer than that, with some rated for up to 30,000 hours of service.
