A slipshod guide to replacing 2003 Ford Focus tail and headlights

This was not fun and a bad way to kill a few hours. L's drivers side rear tail-light and front passenger side head-light decided to cark it at the same time. Now, I've changed a few globes in my time but this was ridiculous. What were those freaking Germans thinking when they put this car together?

I'm documenting this due to the shitty Focus car manual and lack of good info on ye olde' internet. Remember I am a nerd, not a grease monkey so if you break something, sucked in for taking my advice :)

For the easier of the two, I present the rear tail-light:

1. Open the hatch, you'll see a screw next to the light mounting. Of course it's not a phillips or flat-head screw, it's a bastard hexalobular type thingamajig screw, look here for more information than you could ever care to want to know about the stupid screw: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torx. Luckily i had an attachment in my drill-bit set and managed to whip it off.
   
   
2. This is where the manual is crap, it has a picture of a screw in the light? What the hell? No, the screw is actually behind the light, not that they tell you that. So climb into the boot if you are nimble or reach your hand into the boot kind of behind where the light fitting is. You can undo this screw with your hand as it's quiet large.
   
   
3. Now you can just pull the light fitting off, and unscrew the little cylindrical plastic thingy that is housing the globe.
   
   
4. Change it, put it all back together
   
   
5. Sup on some Coopers Sparkling Ale (you're going to need it for the passenger side head-light).

Ok, the rear tail-light wasn't that bad but this is where those conniving German engineers decided to play nasty shenanigans.

1. The battery is on the passenger side right near where we need to shove our hands. Remove the battery cover as it will make life a little bit easier.
   
   
2. You won't be able to see a thing because the light cover recess is underneath the front of the bonnet. I read on a few forums that people have done crazy things to get to it, like jack the car up and remove the front wheel, or completely dismantle the front-end of the car, we don't want to be doing that.
   
   
3. Grab a mirror and put it in the engine-bay so you can get a better look at what you're fiddling with.
   
   
4. You'll see the black light housing, there is a metal hinge that runs horizontally across it, you need to flick it down with a bit of force.
   
   
5. The housing also has two clips attaching at the top. These are bastards. I just bunted it with the handle of the screwdriver and managed to pop it off. Remove it, and put it to the side.
   
   
6. It's best to do this bit by feel, because it is insanely hard to hold a mirror and do this at the same time. Reach in to where abouts you think the globe is and to the right of it there is another metal hook. Push it in and kind of pull up on it, it should spring release, move it to the left, out of the way.
   
   
7. Now you can reach in and pull the globe out and change it.
   

Probably the hardest bit for me was getting the housing back in, even though I aligned the two clips no matter how hard i pushed or angled it, it would not go back in and seal the light fitting. Probably didn't help that that I had bugger all lighting when I was doing it.

Hopefully this has saved someone else a headache or a $60 visit to your mechanic / ford dealer, let's see if I can talk L into trading the Focus in for an ESP XD, atleast i can change the globes in them :)