> These components are not expected to fail, even though they often do. Don't believe me, talk to any mechanic. However, because they are not expected to fail, they are often installed deep inside the car. So, now, if your headlight module fails, it costs $400 in parts, and several hours of labor to fix the same problem. Progress?

Hell, when the HEADLIGHT BULB fails, which is something that IS expected to happen, it can be a pain in the ass to deal with on some cars. Some have sealed headlight units that have to be replaced when a bulb dies, costing hundreds of dollars.

Even ones where the bulb can be replaced sometimes make it ridiculously annoying. A low beam went out on my 2006 Honda CR-V. In theory it is easy to replace. Reach in, disconnect a cable, pull off a rubber seal, release a metal retaining clip, and the bulb can be pulled out. Reverse those steps with the new bulb, and you are done.

In reality, there is a bunch of stuff in the way, making it very hard to actually reach the damn thing. On one side, I was only able to do it by wedging my arm in, leaving it bruised and very sore for days. At least I could actually reach the low beams. While there, I tried to reach the high beams and could not get anywhere near them--I think when they go out I'm just going to give up on them.

Once you are in, it goes well, with the possible exception of the retaining clip. This is not unique to Honda, BTW. A lot of cars use the same kind of retaining clamp. Here's a drawing of how it works [1]. It is hinged at one end (the red circled part in that image), and it hooks under a piece of metal at the other end. It takes a fairly large force to make it hook there.

Here's the problem. You can't see this damn thing when you are trying to unlatch or latch it. The headlight housing is in the way. You can maybe see the end of it that is toward the bottom, but that is not helpful because they orient it so the hinge is on the bottom, and it is not the hinge end that people have trouble with.

Looking at YouTube videos of people explaining how to change headlight bulbs, and reading forums, it looks like it either latches easily, or it just won't latch and you are in for 30 minutes of flailing.

All the car maker would have to do is flip the orientation 180 degrees, so that the hinge is on top and the latching part on the bottom. Then you could see the latching part, and it least know what you are trying to do. The way they are now, you are going in blind.

I can understand that when they lay out components in the engine compartment, they have many constraints, so I can believe that all those things that made it hard for me to reach the bulb had to be there. I can believe that making an opening big enough for easy bulb changing might have made them have to make the car longer or something, that would have added a noticeable cost, and they could reasonably decide that it wasn't worth it.

The retaining clip orientation, though, is almost certainly completely arbitrary, and they just did not consider the effect on the ease of bulb changing (or deliberately picked the worst orientation to encourage people to visit a dealer instead of changing their own bulb).

[1] http://www.suzuki-forums.com/attachments/2g-2006-grand-vitar...