Headlamp

If stoped qith a headlamp out is it a fine or a fine and points ? Further to that if stoped at night would they be likey to make an issue of it

Issue any time as it’s an MOT failure

Find out how to fit new bulbs yourself, most of us here will have done our own modern lorries so one of us should be able to give you advice if you say what motor you drive (year and model specific), then carry spare bulbs and the basic tools needed to do the job, generally a set of torx bits will do the job.

Take a tip, when you have half an hour to spare at a drop dismantle the light fitting to see what the job entails, this is much easier first time in daylight cos when the bulb really blows it’s in the wee small hours ■■■■■■■ with rain and freezing piggin cold, it also gives you the chance to put some grease on any suspect screws likely to seize during the winter salt bath.

If you work for a company that assumes their drivers are too thick to be allowed to change a bulb , and won’t supply spares then when the bulb blows behave as expected ring them act thick and ask what you are supposed to do, probably a call out @ circa £200 to change a bulb at the services? Good, they deserve every penny of it.

It’s not as bad in practice if you work for a company who specified their vehicles with fog lights (by someone who knows one end of a lorry from another, not a pencil pusher), in the event of a headlamp bulb blowing then you can put the front fogs on and maintain a fully lit vehicle until you can stop and sort it out.

Juddian:
Find out how to fit new bulbs yourself, most of us here will have done our own modern lorries so one of us should be able to give you advice if you say what motor you drive (year and model specific), then carry spare bulbs and the basic tools needed to do the job, generally a set of torx bits will do the job.

Take a tip, when you have half an hour to spare at a drop dismantle the light fitting to see what the job entails, this is much easier first time in daylight cos when the bulb really blows it’s in the wee small hours ■■■■■■■ with rain and freezing piggin cold, it also gives you the chance to put some grease on any suspect screws likely to seize during the winter salt bath.

If you work for a company that assumes their drivers are too thick to be allowed to change a bulb , and won’t supply spares then when the bulb blows behave as expected ring them act thick and ask what you are supposed to do, probably a call out @ circa £200 to change a bulb at the services? Good, they deserve every penny of it.

It’s not as bad in practice if you work for a company who specified their vehicles with fog lights (by someone who knows one end of a lorry from another, not a pencil pusher), in the event of a headlamp bulb blowing then you can put the front fogs on and maintain a fully lit vehicle until you can stop and sort it out.

Sound advice…

biggriffin:

Juddian:
Find out how to fit new bulbs yourself, most of us here will have done our own modern lorries so one of us should be able to give you advice if you say what motor you drive (year and model specific), then carry spare bulbs and the basic tools needed to do the job, generally a set of torx bits will do the job.

Take a tip, when you have half an hour to spare at a drop dismantle the light fitting to see what the job entails, this is much easier first time in daylight cos when the bulb really blows it’s in the wee small hours ■■■■■■■ with rain and freezing piggin cold, it also gives you the chance to put some grease on any suspect screws likely to seize during the winter salt bath.

If you work for a company that assumes their drivers are too thick to be allowed to change a bulb , and won’t supply spares then when the bulb blows behave as expected ring them act thick and ask what you are supposed to do, probably a call out @ circa £200 to change a bulb at the services? Good, they deserve every penny of it.

It’s not as bad in practice if you work for a company who specified their vehicles with fog lights (by someone who knows one end of a lorry from another, not a pencil pusher), in the event of a headlamp bulb blowing then you can put the front fogs on and maintain a fully lit vehicle until you can stop and sort it out.

Sound advice…

Yep , I work for a family haulage firm that has it’s own fitter and if he trusts you he’ll give you a collection of bulbs also a red and yellow suzie as well , He has shown me how to change a MAN TGX healight bulb on a 2014 plate where you have to remove the grey plastic surround , I also know how to do an Actros mp4 one as well
Hey earlier this week he even told me how to bypass a trailer airbag so i could get back to the yard 3 miles away

Well oddly enough i was thinking of MAN’s when i wrote that ■■■■■■■■, cos in my experience MAN’s blows so few bulbs in the front headlight cluster that when you do eventually get a blown one, those TX45 (IIRC or might be a TX40) screw bolts can seize on the captive nuts, ask me how i know this , making the whole job a PITA cos you need to force a spanner onto that captive nut in order to remove the screw which is not ideal working by torchlight at 4am , so MAN’s are a definate contender for greasing the bolts up…having said that the design is basically sound for bulb replacement out on the road…unlike new CF’s where they must assume you have the arms and fingers of Mr bloody Tickle, and what the hell Scania were thinking with the headlight bulb fitments on new-gen i’m buggered if i know.

The Merc Mp4 i used to drive blew bulbs quite often.Easy enough to change if you had the bloody tool that came with it to do it.Got a Daf now.And touch wood.Does’nt blow headlight bulbs so often.

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All the trucks where I’m at have a bulb kit in with every type of bulb and tools to change them. The traffic offices also have those and electrics/ABS suzies.

Going over the A66 and A69 in the middle of the night I’d rather spend 5 minutes changing a bulb than hope the other one doesn’t go en route.

Conor:
All the trucks where I’m at have a bulb kit in with every type of bulb and tools to change them. The traffic offices also have those and electrics/ABS suzies.

Going over the A66 and A69 in the middle of the night I’d rather spend 5 minutes changing a bulb than hope the other one doesn’t go en route.

A man of your claimed quality should be able to navigate by the stars and partial moonlight I would have thought…

I’ve had bollockings from TM’s for using my initiative changing bulbs, sourcing nuts and bolts, scavenging curtain straps from stand trailers at 5am to get me out the gate and ensure that I make the delivery slot. I even carry a small tub of bulbs, fuses etc to make my life easier

peirre:
I’ve had bollockings from TM’s for using my initiative changing bulbs, sourcing nuts and bolts, scavenging curtain straps from stand trailers at 5am to get me out the gate and ensure that I make the delivery slot. I even carry a small tub of bulbs, fuses etc to make my life easier

That isn’t a TM, it’s one of the borg, an admin drone steeped in lowest common denominator and one size fits all managing stylee, devoted to spreadsheets and debriefs.

Wouldn’t know the difference between a lorry driver and a bar of soap, i’ve seen them before too, blew one of their tiny minds when i found a broken cab mount on one of their Scanias one morning, couldn’t compute in his head, thought his yard ‘‘bulb man’’…i kid you not …would have one of those in his back pocket and could slip that in like a new 149 tail light bulb with his trusty set of torx screwdrivers.

Thankfully they do not get recruited and are not wanted where i am, if you are proved and trusted to look after your kit and happy to sort stuff out, most of us are and we have stocks of everything likely to be needed in our stores, they are more than happy with the results…ie cost savings and deliveries on time.

I’ve even had situations where I’ve needed to get a replacement trailer number plate, so the “Borg” writes out a defect note, hands it to me and says take this to the garage and get one made up. But the garage who did the R&M for them was 20+ miles away. But yet on the same site albeit a separate contract, in their fleet office 100yds away from the Borg they had the necessary equipment to make the number plate I needed

eagerbeaver:

Conor:
All the trucks where I’m at have a bulb kit in with every type of bulb and tools to change them. The traffic offices also have those and electrics/ABS suzies.

Going over the A66 and A69 in the middle of the night I’d rather spend 5 minutes changing a bulb than hope the other one doesn’t go en route.

A man of your claimed quality should be able to navigate by the stars and partial moonlight I would have thought…

peirre:
I’ve even had situations where I’ve needed to get a replacement trailer number plate, so the “Borg” writes out a defect note, hands it to me and says take this to the garage and get one made up. But the garage who did the R&M for them was 20+ miles away. But yet on the same site albeit a separate contract, in their fleet office 100yds away from the Borg they had the necessary equipment to make the number plate I needed

I’m lucky on that front because we have private plates ,the fitter just goes in to his cupboard to a pile of old number plates and hey presto he usually has an old one of that reg in there from a long gone truck

toonsy:

eagerbeaver:

Conor:
All the trucks where I’m at have a bulb kit in with every type of bulb and tools to change them. The traffic offices also have those and electrics/ABS suzies.

Going over the A66 and A69 in the middle of the night I’d rather spend 5 minutes changing a bulb than hope the other one doesn’t go en route.

A man of your claimed quality should be able to navigate by the stars and partial moonlight I would have thought…

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+1 classic…
personally id just crack on and run on fogs if the other one eventually went in the next week or so.
same for rears,just fire on the fogs.
side markers dont count ,and if theres no fronts or rears,and your heading somewhere popular,then run in front or behine close together with whoever else is going there,and worry about it another day.

dieseldog999:

toonsy:

eagerbeaver:

Conor:
All the trucks where I’m at have a bulb kit in with every type of bulb and tools to change them. The traffic offices also have those and electrics/ABS suzies.

Going over the A66 and A69 in the middle of the night I’d rather spend 5 minutes changing a bulb than hope the other one doesn’t go en route.

A man of your claimed quality should be able to navigate by the stars and partial moonlight I would have thought…

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+1 classic…
personally id just crack on and run on fogs if the other one eventually went in the next week or so.
same for rears,just fire on the fogs.
side markers dont count ,and if theres no fronts or rears,and your heading somewhere popular,then run in front or behine close together with whoever else is going there,and worry about it another day.

Could you use your contacts to tell the Sayers/ Agro men that their lights / front fogs would cut the eyes out of other drivers and wobbling in and out behind us on the 77 only makes us slow down to ■■■■ them off . Two candidates in particular (one Agro ,one subby ) will be shown how to park in the fields or the beach if they don’t wise up a bit sharpish .

The official answer is £50 fixed penalty and no points. Technically it affects your ORCS too, but by looks of things only for 28 days. Of course if you’re driving along a motorway and it went bang, maybe they’d let you replace it within a certain time as they can obviously blow anytime - might depend on the attitude test.

assets.publishing.service.gov.u … policy.pdf

The code is: “IM 63C” on page 37 of the PDF.

As for changing bulbs - on DAF CF’s upto and including 13 plate it was dead easy and took 5 minutes. On our 15+ plates it’s a right nightmare involving either very slim hands that know what they’re doing, or lifting the cab and more fiddling. That might well go to the garage until DAF get the message and actually make them sensibly again.

I can change them myself but new truck MAN didn’t have a alan key the right size so had to have a call out TM not happy but as i explained to him whilst is nit ideal its an MOT failure so needed doing in the interest of doing things right as they like to tell us at every opportunity

bjd:
I can change them myself but new truck MAN didn’t have a alan key the right size so had to have a call out TM not happy but as i explained to him whilst is nit ideal its an MOT failure so needed doing in the interest of doing things right as they like to tell us at every opportunity

You need T45 bit

It proper ■■■■■■ me off trying to change a bulb only to find the torx screw head has been butchered by some heathen with an Allen key.