Car light when ignition off?

depending on the vehicle and year you will have two lots of 'sidelights' at the front, they are parking lights and dimdip lights, with the ignition on the sidelight position will turn on the parking lights and the dimdips, ign off and only the parking lights remain, it is my long range guess that both of your front parking light bulbs have failed, they are small and cheap, and usually easy to change.

Mrcheerful

Yup. It's why our US cousins call them parking lights. They work with everything else off.

Are you sure the sidelights are in fact on when the headlamps are - it can be difficult to tell? Before investigating any further try a new bulb or test the old ones.

If the bulbs are ok - has it a left right parking light system operated by the indicator switch? Most German designed or cars also made for the German market do. And have fiendishly complicated indicator switches because of this. Could be a fault there - although the split is usually only left right rather than back front as well, but it may be due to fusing issues or failed bulb sensors. Car electrics sometimes defy logic. ;-)

It's a separate bulb :)

Having gotten under the bonnet I noticed there was another connector underneath the main headlamp. I twisted this out, and inside is a small 5W bulb. This simply pulled out, and I pushed in a new bulb having nipped into a nearby Halfords.

The next bit of fun was reconnecting it. It didn't seem to want to stay in place So, I removed the rubber gasketty thing around the rear of the headlamp bulb as this seemed to be getting in the way. And then, is if by magic, it seemed well seated. So, putting the gasket back on, I knocked it out (so it couldn't have been well attached in the first place!). It came out of the socket, and the bulb was no longer on the end - it ended up inside the headlamp.

So, I tried again, with the second bulb.

Exactly the same thing happened!

I now have the headlamps working dimmed, dipped and full beam, but no parking lights. And two fully functional parking bulbs inside the headlight.

I've given up. It's going to the garage to have two bulbs changed - and I'll see if Alan the mechanic can get the bulbs out!

What a palaver.

The amount of room behind the headlamps for working might enable someone with tiny hands to work, but someone with normal sized hands doesn't stand a chance!

Hey ho.

Thanks for the help :)

Noz

This is typical of most modern cars IME. I had an Omega which was only just possible to change the bulbs. Our Previa is similar - virtually no space to get to the headlamp bulbs (and taking the headlamps out is nigh-impossible without damaging the mountings). There are some cars where you have to remove a bumper to change a bulb. Madness.

but an old fiesta is really easy to get at!! I would leave the dead bulbs in there, otherwise the headlamps will need to come off.

Chuckle - all done now - and I left the old - er new! - bulbs in there. It's the size of my hands that causes problems with most kinds of DIY... :) Well, thats my excuse

Cheers

Noz