Bulb Replacement (brake lights in white tail light cluster)

[snarl]

Okay, I was told my left brake light was "dimmer" than the right so I checked it out. I found the bulb bracket was not fitted correctly and was hanging loose back there. The result was a broken globe on the bottom (brake) lamp. The bulb is functioning but loses much of the needed red color in the white replacement rear clusters. I pulled the bulb pannel to have a closer look and found the bulbs are soldered to the board!!! What the heck is that all about? My dealer is closed for the holiday (by the way Happy Christmas and thanks for reading). I'm sure it was a faulty install, but I'm wondering on what the replacement cost will be.

Anyone encountered this with the white tail lights?

[mikeythemini]

My dealer quoted £30 for the bulb rack.
Or if you can source one bulb ( I only keep the silver orange ones at the moment), unsolder and just put a new bulb in, thats what I will be doing
Mike

[snarl]

I just got the chance to look at the original lights (the dealer returned to me after my install). At a glance the brackets for the bulbs look the same except you can change the bulbs thank you very much.

Any problem with using the original brackets? It would be worth the pice of a new set of bulbs all around to not have to undergo the construction project of soldering the bulbs in and out.

[snarl]

This may be bad form, but I thought maybe not many folks got to see this during the holiday. I'll be looking for bulb replacements tomorrow and plan to use the factory original boards...unless someone can tell me that would be a bad idea.

Looking for some advice and/or encouragement here.