What did you do to your Kia Stinger today?

[Guzman]

I know what you mean.
Fortunately, the side vents and hood vents that I got were the real thing and not Chinese knockoffs. They had KIA part numbers on them. They fit perfectly.

Those do look nice. Where did you get them from? If they have a Kia part number, I wonder if they are from the American GTS

 

[Snicklefritz]

You basically have to take apart the whole outer hatch area just to change the fkn license bulbs

View attachment 90496

Here's a small clip on how to get at it.

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I'm still salty thinking about it

One minute of no enlightenment. Hah! Other than the reinforcement of "salty", I get nothing from that. Thanks for the warning. When my bulbs go out, I am taking my car in.

 

[jdmvette]

One minute of no enlightenment. Hah! Other than the reinforcement of "salty", I get nothing from that.

From what I can tell, you've got to remove the whole back cover to change the license plate bulbs





Wish me luck, I'm attempting this fix later tonight

 

[Snicklefritz]

From what I can tell, you've got to remove the whole back cover to change the license plate bulbs

View attachment 90521
View attachment 90522


Wish me luck, I'm attempting this fix later tonight

That's a lot of missing clips! Are you going to have a bag of them before you do this?

Please take pictures and show the tools that you use. Thanks.

 

[Deviate]

I know what you mean.
Fortunately, the side vents and hood vents that I got were the real thing and not Chinese knockoffs. They had KIA part numbers on them. They fit perfectly.

who did you buy the vents from?

 

[NS_Stinger]

From what I can tell, you've got to remove the whole back cover to change the license plate bulbs

View attachment 90521
View attachment 90522


Wish me luck, I'm attempting this fix later tonight

I didn't believe you until I went and looked at my car, typically most cars the lens can be popped out easily with a flathead screwdriver in a small slot but you're right. I'm guessing they figured with them being LEDs they'd never or rarely burnout but still a simple slot in the lens wouldve saved people a ton of trouble.

 

[Buzzman12]

who did you buy the vents from?

Oddly enough, I can't remember off the top of my head. It's a senior moment....haha. This was over a year ago.
I'll have to go back through my records. Patience plse....lol.

 

[jdmvette]

I didn't believe you until I went and looked at my car, typically most cars the lens can be popped out easily with a flathead screwdriver in a small slot but you're right. I'm guessing they figured with them being LEDs they'd never or rarely burnout but still a simple slot in the lens wouldve saved people a ton of trouble.

My car was rear-ended not too long ago and the shop had to replace this whole section. I didn't really notice that the light was out until recently.

There's a chance that the shop simply forgot to plug the bulb back in, or it could truly be burned out.

I don't want to have to do this job twice, so I ordered a new bulb replacement so I am covered either way.

 

[jdmvette]

That's a lot of missing clips! Are you going to have a bag of them before you do this?

Please take pictures and show the tools that you use. Thanks.

Those pics are from eBay, not from my car. I hope to not have any missing or broken clips when it's all said and done

 

[Snicklefritz]

There's a chance that the shop simply forgot to plug the bulb back in, or it could truly be burned out

There's a really good chance of that actually. My left interior hatch light was out. It was unplugged. The original owner probably never even noticed.

 

[jdmvette]

The license plate bulb repair job is complete and successful. Found out some very interesting things along the way...

New left hand bulb part number as they're not identical:



Removed the interior hatch panel, as you can see there is no access to reach the bulbs from the inside:


Beginning the process of popping off the exterior panel:



Pops off pretty easily, actually...


...but I lost two of the pins in the process:



Luckily I had a bag of about 1000 replacements and the ones that broke off were in there:


Here's how the bulbs mount, just clip in:




Popped out:


Confirmed inop:



Here's where it gets interesting. This is the old light:


Old and new:



It appears obvious to me that the body shop super glued the connection back together instead of replacing the light with a new one. I am not sure if the old light was working after they glued it and then failed within the last couple of weeks or if it never worked and they thought they could get away with rigging it up like this.

My wife was pretty upset at my findings so she is going to go back to the shop tomorrow and give them a piece of her mind. I for one just wanted the issue fixed but you guys probably know how women can be. Who knows, maybe they'll reimburse me for my out of pocket expense to replace the bulb...but my labor is free

Confirmed working:


All better now:

 

[undymm]

Great job! Was that white outside panel screwed in somewhere, or was it just held in place by clips?

 

[BIG-D]

Convinced my wife this car wasn't gonna kill her everytime she applied the loud pedal, so for now it is going back to stock pretty much and shall be her daily driver... I'm looking at something else.





Peace

 

[MrE]

My wife was pretty upset at my findings so she is going to go back to the shop tomorrow and give them a piece of her mind. I for one just wanted the issue fixed but you guys probably know how women can be. Who knows, maybe they'll reimburse me for my out of pocket expense to replace the bulb...but my labor is free

Confirmed working:
View attachment 90538

All better now:
View attachment 90539

Nice work, and thank you for going to the effort of taking photos as you did the repair and for sharing them here.

Your labor isn't free - it took you time & effort to do this repair which should have been done by the shop. I think yes, let your wife at them.

 

[jdmvette]

Great job! Was that white outside panel screwed in somewhere, or was it just held in place by clips?

Only held on with the clips but there are a lot of them

 

[Snicklefritz]

The license plate bulb repair job is complete and successful. Found out some very interesting things along the way...

New left hand bulb part number as they're not identical:

View attachment 90524

Removed the interior hatch panel, as you can see there is no access to reach the bulbs from the inside:
View attachment 90525

Beginning the process of popping off the exterior panel:

View attachment 90526

Pops off pretty easily, actually...
View attachment 90527

...but I lost two of the pins in the process:
View attachment 90528
View attachment 90529

Luckily I had a bag of about 1000 replacements and the ones that broke off were in there:
View attachment 90530

Here's how the bulbs mount, just clip in:

View attachment 90532
View attachment 90531

Popped out:
View attachment 90533

Confirmed inop:
View attachment 90534


Here's where it gets interesting. This is the old light:
View attachment 90535

Old and new:
View attachment 90536
View attachment 90537

It appears obvious to me that the body shop super glued the connection back together instead of replacing the light with a new one. I am not sure if the old light was working after they glued it and then failed within the last couple of weeks or if it never worked and they thought they could get away with rigging it up like this.

My wife was pretty upset at my findings so she is going to go back to the shop tomorrow and give them a piece of her mind. I for one just wanted the issue fixed but you guys probably know how women can be. Who knows, maybe they'll reimburse me for my out of pocket expense to replace the bulb...but my labor is free

Confirmed working:
View attachment 90538

All better now:
View attachment 90539

Thank you so much! Now I know for certain that I am not touching any of this. Interior hatch panel off too! You didn't say that the first time. Looks like the hatch latch gets removed also? Can't tell from what you said and showed. Doesn't matter, I won't be doing any of this, ever. No tools. No clips. I guess this design isn't particularly stupid. Probably other cars are just as unfriendly or more so.

 

[BIG-D]

Removed the carbon bonnet / unichip/ Dump pipes / non factory exhaust & now to decide where to sell them and how much for??

 

[ANTR]

Currently at the shop getting the H&R lowering springs installed

 

[jdmvette]

@Buzzman12

 

[Thebong24]

I did some wraps blacking out the black chrome and decklids