Car: BMW 2 Series
Owner: Rob Keenan
Are you up to the task of changing a fuse? What a daft question. As a current or prospective Haynes Repair Manual owner, of course you can change a fuse. But can you change a fuse on your car when you're away from home and don't have any tools with you?
Again, your answer is probably a resounding "yes", and if the blown fuse had been in my car’s rear fusebox, under the boot floor, I'd have answered "yes" with you.
All I need to do for that is lift out the floor and there it is (shown below), along with the battery and puncture repair kit. There's also a handy little 'fuse map' card tucked down one side, to help you work out which fuse box you should go hunting for.
Naturally, the blown fuse was in the other fusebox, which is under the bonnet.
No problem, I thought. This is going to be a two-minute job. So I popped the bonnet and quickly realised that this wasn't going to be a job at all. At least, not until I drove 50 miles to get home to my tool box.
The engine bay fusebox is below a section of cowling that is fixed into place with several fasteners. They're plastic and only need half a turn to release, but none of them would budge with fingers. So I was left in the ridiculous position of having to get out my socket set.
With the fasteners released, the plastic cowling could be swung to one side and the lid removed. Except this was also a bugger of a job because there's a strut brace running right over the top of the box (the silver thing at the top of the pic shown below), so the lid can't come out altogether and has to be tucked down one side of the box until it needs to go back on.
Fortunately, the blown fuse was for one of the 12V sockets, so wasn't critical to the running of the car. But if it had been a fuse for a fuel pump or some other critical component, I'd have had to call out a breakdown service. And having heard some rescue horror stories from colleagues, who knows how long that would have taken? As well as being pretty embarrassing.
If I'd been a Scout, I expect none of this hassle would have befallen me. But with lesson learnt, my socket set now travels with me wherever I go.