Embarrassing question: How to remove headlight bulb?

[Teeter]

I can’t seem to get the bulb out of the headlight housing for the primary light. This is on the drivers side behind the battery.

It freely rotates to the unlock position (to the left if you are looking at the back of the headlight) but just doesn’t even budge a little to come out. I can sort of get a screwdriver behind it but worrried about using too much force to pry in it. Is there something I’m missing? Do I need to try and crank it even further to the left to unlock?

Ironically I replaced this entire headlight unit a couple of years ago and don’t recall any issues putting the bulbs back in (nothing was forced).

Any ideas?

 

[Teeter]

Ok, I got the passenger side bulb out in 5 seconds by just twisting and pulling so I know the motion.

Driver side is just stuck, it’s like the teeth of the bulb are not aligning with the housing when twisted to the remove position.

 

[bucfl]

I had the same issue a few days ago on the passenger side. Just keep twisting and pulling and it will come out. It was a bit of a pain, not sure why the tabs of the bulb lined up correctly but just would not pull out. I just had to keep struggling with it until it popped out. Went in fine afterwards.

 

[Teeter]

I had the same issue a few days ago on the passenger side. Just keep twisting and pulling and it will come out. It was a bit of a pain, not sure why the tabs of the bulb lined up correctly but just would not pull out. I just had to keep struggling with it until it popped out. Went in fine afterwards.

Ok, I finally brought out the big dog 2’ screwdriver and pries it off, it just needed a bit more force than what I could do by hand.

Lesson learned was that I think housing female side has 3 slots that look the same size, but are a tad different. The replacement bulb has 3 tabs, two large and one small. At first glance it looks like it doesn’t matter on the orientation to line it up, but as I learned it does.