Head-light-bulb replacement 2008 Hyundai Sonata

High beam bulb with electrical connector attached. See the little silver tab at the top of the opening in the black plastic connector? Push that to release the bulb. A screwdriver works well for this.

Headlight burned out on the Hyundai. This happened once before so we should be able to fix it easily enough. The bulbs are concealed under black plastic cups, that much I remember. Getting the cup off is easy, and getting bulb out of its socket is not too bad. It's held in with a little spring wire rat-trap arrangement. Just push down and to one side and off it pops. 'Down' actually means towards the front of the car, and 'sideways' means up. It just depends on your orientation. Bending over the front of the car and hanging your head down till you are looking forward is the only way you can see anything. Now all we have to do is pull off the electrical connector. Easy, once you figure out that you have to push the little metal tab. We pick up a new bulb at Freddies and plug it in, but it doesn't fix the problem. The headlight is still burned out. That was Sunday evening.

Headlight bulbs, low-beam on left, high-beam on right

Today I took another look at the problem. Problem is that it is the low-beam bulb that was burned out and we replaced the high-beam.  Doh!

Lightbulb bases, lowbeam on left, highbeam on right

High-beam and low-beams have separate covers. The low-beam cover is a little more difficult to get off, but not too bad. I'm working on the passenger side bulb. Unclipping the radiator overflow tube and pushing it to one side improves access. Getting the light bulb out is not too bad, a little wiggling, a little jiggling and out it comes. The connector on this one just slides off, no secret handshake required.

Low beam compartment, rat-trap sprung, electrical connector pulled loose, bulb removed.  We're looking at it upside down. The windshield washer filler cap is the blue thing in the lower right corner.
The red 'wire' is actually the hook from the bungee cord I employed to hold the wires out of the way. See the two little prongs sticking up just to the right of where the yellow wire disappears? The tab on the base of the bulb goes in between these two prongs.

But now, getting the bulb back in place, that's another story. First step is do not connect the electrical plug first, save that for later. The rat-trap spring is a nice, cheap, secure way to secure the bulb, but when it's not doing its job, it wants to get in the way. Push it gently to the side. Since it is cheap, it sometimes wants to jam and and not swing all the way clear. A little wiggle and jiggle helps here. And hope it stays there. Any breath of air will cause it to swing back over the hole and block your way. Now, without breathing, slide the bulb into the hole, paying attention to the tab on the bulb base and the prongs on the socket. When you have it in position, now you can swing the rat-trap over and press down (forward) and down (down) to latch it.

Low beam bulb in place, rat-trap secured. Wires still hanging out. The two prongs mentioned above are visible on either side of the electrical contacts on the base of the bulb. Note that the bulb doesn't actually go in the hole, it just sits on top of it.

Got it all plugged in and tested it and it works, but now the high-beam, the one we replaced on Sunday isn't working. Guess I have some more work to do.

Tools I used: droplight, mirror, screwdriver, bungee cord.

There are several videos on YouTube that cover this same subject. One of them advocates removing the entire headlamp assembly. That is a more straight forward approach and probably a lot less fiddly. Your choice. The video has some good close up shots of all the nasty little bits, so it's worth viewing even if you don't decide to do it that way.