Third Brake Light is a POS!

[PJorgen]

First time I've run into something on this car that was poorly made. I've got an '02 C4S, and noted that one or more of the bulbs in the third brake light was out. This is the main 3rd light, not the one in the retractable wing.

Anyway - the owner's manual has full instructions for removing the lens and replacing the bulbs. I take it out to find that the plastic has become incredibly brittle and the sockets for the bulbs (7 of them!) are these mickey-mouse little copper brackets attached to a couple of rails that carry the current. The thing pretty much disintegrated in my hands, and I was being gentle with it.

Looked it up on the price list (996.631.050.00) and it's over $100! Guess I'll put it back together best I can and order a new one from Sunset Porsche.

Not really much point to this post except to rant about the poor quality of the brake light assembly. I realize that plastic gets brittle in the sun and heat, and this part is exposed to a lot of heat from the engine. Usually Porsche takes this kind of thing into account when it designs the parts, but not in this case it would seem.

[CosmosC4S]

My 3rd brake light is all working fine, but there is one bulb in the tail/wing brake light that is out.

Thanks for the tip, I should be careful with handling when I check out mine.

[fastboydave]

Buy yourself the LED type. The bulbs wont die, are better performance (brightness) and it is as good quality as the OEM part. Check them out, i got mine from Carnewal, but you do have to change the positive and negative around on the conector that plugs into the light............

[mpikounis]

I second that! The LED type is a much better part and looks great. Don't bother fixing the oem part.

[viper501]

Buy the LED from Carnewal.com. Gert is great. If you want my old one, it may be sitting in the garage still (or I may have already trashed the POS). Shoot me a p.m. if you want me to look. Its yours for shipping if its still around.

[CosmosC4S]

You're right it's a cheap POS. I opened up my spoiler tail light to check one of the bulbs that wasn't lighting up.

I was extra careful knowing that it could well be disintegrating already,

so, as if I was disarming a bomb...I carefully opened up the casing...

one of the clips started to give, then I looked at the faulty bulb, but everything was good.

I checked the strips of metal for connection issues, the plastic pieces that hold/support the metal slots for the bulbs started breaking!

I was like WTF! So I carefully repositioned everything and back into the casing.

Now all the bulbs work!? Weird...probably just poor connection.

I guess I'll have to look into the LED lights soon, but for now, they still work.

Edited July 26, 2007 by CosmosC4S

[calh4289]

i broke mine when i was buffing the car....emailed bumperplugs.com and got my smoked LED replacement within 2 days. very nice product.