Thought I'd pass this little bit of today's experience along. Phoned Porsche and another reputable Porsche workshop here in Bris this morning about availability of a rear brake light bulb. My left rear brake light blew over the weekend and was giving me a computer message every time on start up, which quickly became annoying seeing the red exclamation mark in my tacho all the freakin time. Both Porsche and another workshop wanted me to book the car in... And potentially charge me up to 1 hour labour. WTF.. For a bulb? I checked Pelican Parts and also the car's manual and it all seemed too easy. Popped the rear lid, one screw later and the whole rear light cluster comes out, easy as. Turn the plastic housing for the bulb, get access and one quarter turn your bulb is out. Seemed a pretty standard bulb. Went to super cheap and bought a 12V 21/5W bulb - Porsche one is 12V 21/4W bulb. A twin pack costs $3.89. Here's the trick. The Porsche Bulbs have offset pins on either side of the bulb, different from standard - meaning the Super cheap bulb didn't want to go in the housing. 10 seconds of filing down one of the side pins solved the problem. New Bulb installed and all good [so far]. Checked the brakes in a shop front window and all looks good and working properly. Cheapest and fastest job I've ever done on a car [and I have a spare].
Discussion summary
YOUR RESEARCH997.1 rear brake light fix - $1.95 !
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10 seconds of filing down one of the side pins solved the problem.
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does that mean, one is brighter than the other? Well done btw
In daylight looking through the rear view mirror into the shop window, they look identical. I can always put the other bulb into the other side to match them. The bulbs take 5W, while Porsche say 4W, so I'm assuming the bulb can take more power, but unsure if that also means it's dimmer... I'll get a friend to check out the lights tonight to see if they match.
Great little insight GRR997, thanks for the tip! My guess is that you may need to do the other side soon as usually when one goes, the others not far behind (providing they've both been install at the same time in the past) So a 4w wouldn't be an easy off the shelf bulb that's available at local Autobarns and SCAs? - come to think of it, I've only ever noticed 5w's
Should have gone to Pick-a-part and got two for $1
Quotes source post: 157725
Should have, could have, would have [next time for sure]
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