225 How can headlight electric plugs be so difficult...?

Megane 225 with xenon headlights.

I'm having a real battle with trying to remove (without breaking them) the electric connectors on one of the headlight units. Pictures:




These will not budge. Tried a lot of ways, approx to hours in. I've worked on cars for 19 years and these seem to be beating me... The other side headlight unit gave almost no trouble.

If any of you have any tricks how these types of connectors come loose safely, I would be most grateful. Can't believe this is challenging me to the limit after all I've seen throughout the years!

 

I knew someone would make that joke

On a more serious note, at this point I think it must be the pins corroded AND the seals stuck. I guess I'll just have to work them a little harder (and you're right, I didn't yet try penetrating fluid). Thanks for your help. I'll let you know how it goes and what the culprit was in the end. It's funny how these kinds of problems never came into play on the older cars I used to work on. Only cars made after year 2000 have had me swearing when trying to disconnect electric connectors. That's some progress in its own right I guess...

 

Agreed. And it's not just the fasteners, it's also things like having to loosen the radiator lower support frame to get to the lower A-arm bolts etc. I do wonder if it's just zero interest in making maintenance reasonable, or if they do it on purpose to discourage people from working on their cars.

With those electric connectors though, of course they can be forced off, but if you break the matching connector on the xenon headlight unit while doing so, then it's going to be fun times indeed.

Will try again tonight and see if I can get these buggers loose without breaking anything.

 

Thanks, will do

 

I've not tackled with them again yet. Will see if I can get all the necessery work done without tampering with these (the plugs are ***** tight). Very likely end result would be a broken connector and if that happens on the headlight unit's side...

 

Well. The plugs are off. The last fight lasted around 90 minutes but the buggers finally gave in. As I suspected, the locking clips on the connectors were simply too brittle to handle with sufficent force. In the end I did not figure out a way to remove the plugs without any damage to them, in this particular case I really think it would have been impossible. The surprise was the actual pins on the plugs had no corrosion - the plugs were just ******* tight and the hardened old plastic had formed a seal on its own that required *a lot* of force to pull them off.

Oh, and by the way, the plugs on the other side of the headlight unit, the ones that exist on both headlight units, those required about ten seconds each to come off, all four of them - so these front ones really are something special. It was easier to remove the subframe on the Megane than to remove these connectors intact, so that's something to think about.

Actually it was a very "interesting" process that finally allowed me to remove the connectors; I'll be sharing pictures in the future. This did teach me new things about French engineering and the ingenious features that are built onto the Megane - it would actually be funny if it weren't so annoying Anyway, I'll show what I mean once I get some pictures up.