Since to day overcast and warm, it gave me the opportunity to get some stuff done to my wife’s Jetta. There were 3 tasks that needed to be done and I wanted to get at least 2 out of 3 done before it got dark out. The tasks were:
- Swap out her foggy headlight with a new one
- Install her new radio
- Install a new antenna base and mast
Since there was a threat of train as the day wore on, the first task was the headlight. I opened up the hood of her car in the driveway and took a look at what we had. It looked like the headlight came off with just 2 torx screws. I thought I may have to go buy a new torn driver for this, but before I went out, I wanted to take a look at the new headlight we had ordered. I opened up the box and was surprised. There was not just a lens like I thought it would be. There as an entire headlight assembly in there. I looked at the holes on the new unit and was befuddled. I could not see the bottom 2 screws that this mew unit was calling for. Before we go any further, here’s a picture of my wife’s car. You can see that the passenger side headlight is very foggy.
I went back in side and decided to look online to see what was involved. I found a great YouTube tutorial on how to reaplce the headlight. That’s when I got very nervous. You had to basically disassemble the entire from end of the car to replace the headlight. At first, I didn’t even want to try it. After watching the video a second time, I gained a little more confidence. Giving myself a pep talk, I drove up to Sears to get the tools I needed to do the job.
First order of business was to remove the front grill. After that, I had to remove the bumper. Once those 2 items were gone I finally had access to the bottom 2 screws of the headlight. Like I said, I had to basically take the front of her car apart.
Believe it or not, it took me longer to transfer the bulbs into the new headlight then it did to take apart the car. Here it is with the new headlight installed.
After all that was said and done, I put everything back together again. Surprisingly, there were no extra parts left over!
This was a task that overwhelmed me when I first looked at it, but after all was said and done, it was a very easy task.
Next was her car radio. Since rain was impending I did not wane to take off her antenna mount, leaving a nice big hole in the roof of her car. So, it was onto the car stereo. I won’t go into details, but let’s just say the electrical system on her car sucks. After 2 hours I finally got the wiring harness all figured out. The only downside is that you have to turn off the radio every time you leave the car or else it stays on. Volkswagens did not have an ‘acc’ wire to cut off the power once the car is turned off. You can make one by extending the wires from the radio harness to the fuse box, but I did not want to do that. IN the ned, her radio is installed and she is in love with it!
Even though I spent almost all day working on her car, it was very satisfying seeing the fruits of you labor after all of those hours of work.
