Hi everyone,

There is a dead spider in the driver-side headlight assembly of my R56 '09 MCS. I have the bixenon headlights. It's inside the assembly at the very bottom, just underneath the headlight glass.

Took it to the dealership and they say it's not a defect. Spider just happened to crawl into opening in the housing and died, so no warranty fix. Any ideas on what I can do to get it out?

Any help would be much appreciated.


Thanks,

Ryan

Obviously there is a way to get in as the spider managed it.
Never tried it, but if you remove the rear access cover that will let you into the back of the light where the bulb is, I doubt on a xenon removing the bulb would let you into the headlight interior unlike the halogen version as the xenon projector lens is still there.
There is a slot just below the under the lens housing you can see it from the outside, on the indicator tube so to speak, so whether you could feed a small rubber hose, similar to a screen washer hose into the back and guide it round into the headlight might be possible, then when youve reached the spider connect to other end of the hose somehow to your vacuum cleaner and try to suck it up.
Other possibly might be to remove the whole headlight unit and see if the plastic outer headlight cover is removeable, some just unclip so you dont need to renew the whole thing if you break it, doesnt mention anything about if this is possible in the workshop manual though.
Dont know for sure, never heard of it happening before, could be good look if its a money spider!

Obviously there is a way to get in as the spider managed it.
Never tried it, but if you remove the rear access cover that will let you into the back of the light where the bulb is, I doubt on a xenon removing the bulb would let you into the headlight interior unlike the halogen version as the xenon projector lens is still there.
There is a slot just below the under the lens housing you can see it from the outside, on the indicator tube so to speak, so whether you could feed a small rubber hose, similar to a screen washer hose into the back and guide it round into the headlight might be possible, then when youve reached the spider connect to other end of the hose somehow to your vacuum cleaner and try to suck it up.
Other possibly might be to remove the whole headlight unit and see if the plastic outer headlight cover is removeable, some just unclip so you dont need to renew the whole thing if you break it, doesnt mention anything about if this is possible in the workshop manual though.
Dont know for sure, never heard of it happening before, could be good look if its a money spider!

Thank you very much for your detailed response. I'll see what I can do, using your advice. I might try sticking some adhesive tape to the end of a tube and just stick it to the spider to get it out.

Another question as I've had little experience fiddling with the headlights: Would I be required to remove the driver-side wheel/tire in order to access the rear access cover?

Do a search on the "Joey Mod" for how to take apart the headlight.

Michael

Obviously there is a way to get in as the spider managed it.
Never tried it, but if you remove the rear access cover that will let you into the back of the light where the bulb is, I doubt on a xenon removing the bulb would let you into the headlight interior unlike the halogen version as the xenon projector lens is still there.
There is a slot just below the under the lens housing you can see it from the outside, on the indicator tube so to speak, so whether you could feed a small rubber hose, similar to a screen washer hose into the back and guide it round into the headlight might be possible, then when youve reached the spider connect to other end of the hose somehow to your vacuum cleaner and try to suck it up.
Other possibly might be to remove the whole headlight unit and see if the plastic outer headlight cover is removeable, some just unclip so you dont need to renew the whole thing if you break it, doesnt mention anything about if this is possible in the workshop manual though.
Dont know for sure, never heard of it happening before, could be good look if its a money spider!

Finally got around to this. Remove the rear access cover and you can actually guide a straw (or several taped-together straws) into the headlight assembly, around the projector lens. From there, you can just attach a vacuum hose to the other end and suck the sucker out. :)

Thanks for the help!

Well, you could have used the same technique to roll some food down the straw for the spider to eat, then you wouldn't have the bad karma of having starved a defenceless spider to death......

And maybe the spider was having a ghastly time looking at all those tasty bugs splashing themselves onto the headlamp but finding that he couldn't get them as the headlamp plastic was in between.

Well, you could have used the same technique to roll some food down the straw for the spider to eat, then you wouldn't have the bad karma of having starved a defenceless spider to death......



Dont worry the spider didnt starve to death it was scorched by the headlight bulb :D
It probably saw the light and went to heaven.