Has anyone heard of the connector going to the headlights becoming brittle after only 4 years? I was trying to replace a bulb yesterday, tried to get the connector out, and it broke in half. Anyone feel it would not be good to glue it back together? I’m going to end up taking it someplace to get the connector out - never was able to get it fully out - but I don’t want them charging me alot and saying I have to “replace” it when I feel it could be glued back together. It’s a clean break in half. Thanks!
It’s quite possible. A lot of times if the bulb is on it’s way out, it will cause the nearby wiring to heat up, causing the plastic to go brittle. You no doubt could just reglue it, but what would probably be a better solution would be to actually pick yourself up a new connector, either from the dealer or your friendly local auto recycler, and rewire it yourself. On some cars, the other end of the wire that hooks up to the headlight will have a terminal connector on it so it’s easy to replace (since this is a common problem), but you may have to snip the wires off of the old connector and crimp the new headlight connector on there. Also, if you haven’t recently replaced that headlight, it might be a good idea to put a new bulb in there as that might have been what lead to the thing going bad in the first place.
Your connector probably got brittle because it got hot. I don’t think you should try to glue it together. Volvo probably has a pigtail to repair this. Occasionally auto manufacturers will cheap out on certain connectors when they are engineering an electrical system. That may or may not be the case with your Volvo. Most often heat at connectors is because of a poor connection. The connector on the headlight itself might not have been manufactured correctly. Maybe something got splashed on the connector. I think you should get a pigtail and install the new bulb with dielectric grease. I use the stuff in any connector that may be exposed to the weather.