My son has had the Jag for a bit as he's been off at Uni & returned home this week at the start of exams, so I was catching up on maintenance items on the weekend.

The biggest issue I found was that the centre brake light had fallen off the rear window as the glue holding the brackets in place had finally given up. Not a big deal to fix as it is only a matter of re-gluing the brackets that hold the assembly in place. Lots of posts on that, so no need to go into detail except to say that I elected to use epoxy for the job.

The reason for the post is to show what I found when I took the assembly off the car. You can see from the photos below how heat damaged the light assembly is (the colour keyed cover is fine). The lamp unit itself was so warped that the centre bulbs were half exposed & 3 of the bulbs had gotten so hot they had melted the surrounding plastic & welded themselves in place. I have no idea when the warping started / happened as I've never given the assembly a 2nd look as I'd never had reason to look at it before & from the outside all looked good. I found that despite the damage to the housing, only 2 of the bulbs weren't working. Given that the centre light is something you can't see when you are driving & as I never had a blown fuse or bulb fail light had never had any reason to suspect that there was a problem - so they may have been dead & the unit warped for years for all I know.

Rather than replace the unit, I think I'm going to look at modifying an LED strip to fit. As the housing is a pretty straightforward box structure It shouldn't be very difficult and from what I've seen the assembly is probably more expensive.

Anyone else ever seen anything like this?





Assembly as it came off the car. The centre has warped at least 1 cm





You can see how warped the light assembly is. As well, the red lamp cover has also melted in the area where the bulbs sit.





Some of the heat damage





Another view of the heat damage





The brackets that attach to the rear window ready for epoxy to be applied. The one on the right shows the tab that engages the assembly to hold it in place.

 

Yes, but not to that degree.

Were extra strong bulbs fitted?

Mine are now individual LED bulbs. They light fine without any
special work.