The way my car illuminated the road had been bugging me for a while until I took a good look and realized that the inside of the front right headlight was detached from its housing.
[![](http://spenibus.net/f/t/cN)](http://spenibus.net/f/g/cN)
Life must be expensive or at least clunky when you can't fix things yourself. So naturally, I took apart the car (just a bit).
This is a working headlight:
[![](http://spenibus.net/f/t/cL)](http://spenibus.net/f/g/cL)
This is a dislodged headlight, notice the empty black space in the middle, proof that the piece has sunk in its housing:
[![](http://spenibus.net/f/t/cM)](http://spenibus.net/f/g/cM)
That's when I grabbed a [Torx][1] screwdriver and a [socket wrench][2]:
[![](http://spenibus.net/f/t/cO)](http://spenibus.net/f/g/cO)
I had done the same operation a week earlier to fix the housing of my front left fog light housing. It was slightly broken, dislodged and the bulb was destroyed.
At this point, I should mention it is a used car I bought 2 months ago, just to shift the burden of responsibility.
I fixed the broken bits the best I could and changed the bulb. Speaking of which, the engineers who designed that car had the fantastic idea (spoiler, it's sarcasm) to use a less standard one, the PSX24W. Most shops don't carry it and when I found one, it cost me 33 euros for a single one.
I thought about retro-fitting more standard bulbs but the difference in wattage, and therefore higher temperature, might have burned the housing.
<center>
[![](http://spenibus.net/f/t/cR)](http://spenibus.net/f/g/cR)
[![](http://spenibus.net/f/t/cQ)](http://spenibus.net/f/g/cQ)
[![](http://spenibus.net/f/t/cS)](http://spenibus.net/f/g/cS)
</center>
Anyway, back to the headlight. I was hoping to fix it properly but the housing is sealed shut and taking it apart was becoming tedious and potentially risky. I simply snapped the piece back where it should be and settled to help keep it in place with some zip-ties, hoping the heat wouldn't reach behind the reflectors and melt them away.
<center>
[![](http://spenibus.net/f/t/cT)](http://spenibus.net/f/g/cT)
[![](http://spenibus.net/f/t/cU)](http://spenibus.net/f/g/cU)
</center>
There, all fixed.
[![](http://spenibus.net/f/t/cV)](http://spenibus.net/f/g/cV)
Then I went for a test drive to check and fix the alignment. The white stripes on the road are 3 metres long and the space between them are 10 metres long.
`3 * 3 + 2 * 10 ~= 30 metres`, pretty much perfect.
<center>
[![](http://spenibus.net/f/t/dr)](http://spenibus.net/f/g/dr)
[![](http://spenibus.net/f/t/cW)](http://spenibus.net/f/g/cW)
</center>
All done.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torx
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socket_wrench