ant heaton

yes: my girlfriends 1.4 auto from 1999 has aircon ( but it has spent its entire life on the costa-del-sol so it needs it ).

so... with the benefit of daylight, the other posts here and some thinking time i fixed it. for the benefit of anyone else :- after removing the 2 torx screws in the handholds, lever the bottom of the platic trim forwards : there are 3 plastic poppers to free along the bottom; then the whole trim has to be shoved upwards to free the 5 plastic poppers along the top edge, this takes more force than you might be comfortable with but there is nothing else holding it on. in my case it seems that the pin ( or bolt ) which links the metal pivot on the end of the plastic arm to the corresponding metal pivot point on the lock arm had evaporated so i had to find a suitable bit of metal to replace it with ( just over half an inch sawed of the flat end of a thick nail makes a decent replacement pin, and you can drill it to take a circlip, or saw a slot in it and open it up slightly to secure it in place, or use a suitable size small bolt with locknut; whatever comes to hand that is a decent fit in the hole. ). and the tail light unit is only held on with one torx screw on the outside of the unit, just under the edge of the bootlid ; easy to see when you can open the boot ! when the lock fails the bootlid can be manually opened by pulling the rear seat forwards, reaching into the boot and pushing on the black lock arm immediately to the right of the silver securing post in the centre; with minimal force the lock pops open and then push a bit more to open the lid.

hi , i'm new , and not so able mechanically so please be kind..... my girlfriend has just bought a lovely 1999 Arosa 1.4 auto : it has developed 2 problems i want to fix :- 1) boot wont open 2) need to change a brake light bulb since the car is quite mature now ( but in beautiful condition ), the plastics will be a bit brittle and i am prone to breaking stuff i want to do it the right way to make sure i do as little damage as possible. QUESTION 1. i've had a look at the various posts here concerning arosa boot lids that dont open : i want to pop the interior trim off and manually free the lock so i can see what has given up. ( it wont open with the central locking or the key , so it sounds like the connector arm having popped off ) ; how is the trim held in and what do i have to do to remove it ?? QUESTION 2. how do i get to the back of the rear light cluster to change a bulb ? ( which piece of trim do i remove first and what holds it in ? ) thanks in advance Ant