a few issues resolved

[mjj1543]

Hi,

Bought an 09 Vectra 1.8 SRI last week. Generally pleased with it but found a couple of issues at the front end and was surprised to find that they may require bumper removal to fix. Well, having found this forum, and trawled through the various posts I managed to sort them all out much more simply. So I thought I'd share some knowledge for anyone else needing to do the same thing -

The issues - 1) My windscreen washer was washing the rear screen when I pulled the stalk forward and the front screen when I pushed it away from me. But to work the wipers I still had to push/pull the stalk in the correct manner. 2) The outside temp sensor was reading all over the place. 3) the n/s fog lamp had fallen back in its housing in the bumper.

The fix - jacked up the car, removed the n/s wheel, and removed the wheel arch lining entirely. This gave plenty of access to all three problems.

1) Switched the pipes round that come from the washer pump, and this fixed that problem simply.

2) Found that the temp sensor had lost a clip and had fallen out of it's holder in the front grill, so was just hanging on the end of its wiring. I'd already bought another so just switched them round and refitted it correctly. Now working fine.

3) Checked the fog lamp and found that two of the three plastic feet that fix it to the car had snapped completely. Decided to remove it altogether and decide what to do. The lamp is a plastic moulding and a new one is apparently around £60 (plus £100 for VX to fit it!). So, first of all I applied liberal amounts of araldite and held the broken pieces in place with plumbers tape. While waiting for it to dry I decided that this probably wouldn't be strong enough and would eventually just snap again. So I rooted around in my tool box and found a couple of metal brackets from an old bed. Measured up the original feet, bent these brackets into shape, drilled them, and finally riveted them to the body of the fog lamp. Even stronger than the original! Fitted it back into the car and it works perfectly.

Refitted the wheel arch liner and wheel, job done. All in all, it took less than 2hrs, if you exclude my 'thinking time'!

And it's mainly thanks to the information posted on this forum, info that I couldn't even find in the Haynes Manual. So thanks to all for saving me some cash!

Mark.

[Niall83]

Good job and yes the forum is great for finding all sorts out and even stuff the VX dealers don't even know. Ebay is great for cheap parts. I needed a new fog light a picked up a new one there for £15.

Welcome to the forum.

[Big Dave]

3) Checked the fog lamp and found that two of the three plastic feet that fix it to the car had snapped completely.
So, first of all I applied liberal amounts of araldite and held the broken pieces in place with plumbers tape. While waiting for it to dry I decided that this probably wouldn't be strong enough and would eventually just snap again.

Previous owner of my Vectra-C tried to repair the offside foglight with araldite (same problem - broken legs). One day when cleaning the car it broke off the mountings again. Cleaned all the broken joints up and used superglue. 3+ years on and still holding strong.

[mjj1543]

funnily enough, one of the broken feet had already seen an attempted fix by what looked like superglue. Because the screws would be putting a lot of pressure on the repairs, i thought metal brackets would be a better fix.

There's a new fog lamp on fleabay at the moment that I've had my eyes on, but doubt I'll be needing it now I'm pleased to say.

Cheers fellas.