Issue with DRL bulb holder - overheating?

[Jay1983]

I have had an issue with my left side DRL bulb since we had those two really hot days on the Monday and Tuesday some weeks back.

On the Tuesday evening I got in my car in the morning and the 'check left side DLR/side bulb' warning was on, the bulb was out. Looking at the screw out bulb holder it was very dirty and worn, but the bulb looked ok other than heat scorched. I tried a new bulb and nothing. I tried the old bulb and a new bulb on the right side, both worked. So it's the holder.

Bought a new OEM bulb holder, it worked, a few days later I got the warning light again and bulb not working. Hoping it was just a faulty part I bought another one just to check, a few days later exactly the same thing. They both look like this with one contact seemingly fried:

One contact is as clean and new as expected, the other side is blackened.

If it helps my Leon is black and when I opened the bonnet on the Tuesday the front of my car was absolutely red hot to touch (it was 39 degrees after all), even the support rod was almost impossible to touch.

Because of the position of the holder I can't get in to look at cleaning around the contact. I can see from videos that the headlights are a bit of a faff to get to to take out and look at.

All the other lights on the left side unit work fine, so I am presuming the fuse is not an issue?

I am looking for any pointers, has anyone had this issue before with a Leon or other car?

 

[RUM4MO]

I'm hoping that you are using the correct wattage of bulb in that fitting.

My wife's previous car, a 2002 VW Polo, ended up having a similar problem with the maybe LHS front indicator - that seemed, in my mind, to be due to a manufacturing error than was caused by the design which was meant to be the mirror image of the RHS fitting - but it seemed that on one side the detail tolerance meant that misalignment could occur as at best it is only just aligned to make a good contact. I got over that by soldering in a short cable so that the bulb holder became a part, almost of the indicator light housing, ie it was tethered to the light fitting by that additional cabling that meant that it worked as intended - I never ever noticed anyone else having that problem though.

You are correct the fuse will either be okay or open circuit, in your case it sounds like it is okay.

So to round up, I'd think that you will need to replace the complete housing if the bulb holders you have been buying are genuine VW Group parts.

 

[Jay1983]

Yes the bulb is correct, in fact I put the same new bulb in the right side and that works fine. I did check the fuse just in case but works fine as expected as the other LH lights work.

Seems weird that we had such a hot spell and it happened. I've had the car 4 years and never changed the DRL bulbs or holder.

I guess there's not a lot else for now other than having a look at the housing, as I can't see it in situ. The one other thing I will say is that the LH holder is harder to return to position when you remove it. The RH one is easy to find and turn in, the LH one takes a bit of fiddling to find and then make the little turn. Might not be related though.

 

[RUM4MO]

That VW Polo that I mentioned was bought new by us, used for maybe 6 years before it developed that problem, so while I felt that the issue was from new and due to a sloppy bit of design work or sloppy manufacturing, it did not cause any problems until that car was maybe 6 years old, crazy but true.

Edit:- in the case of that front indicator, when you think about it, it does not get used very much when compared with your DRL, so heating up and blackening the bulb holder probably was never going to be an issue with that Polo, but the driver, my wife, was always immediately aware of an issue due to the manner of which the dashboard indicator repeater light was flashing.

 

[Jay1983]

I forgot to update this at the time but basically the contacts in the light unit for the DLR bulb holder had melted, same on both sides actually, so any new bulb holder I added was just melting from the heat within a couple of days. Had to replace both front light units!

Considering the car is black and it was 40+ Celsius that day it is something to be wary of, especially for cars the same age as mine (8 years).