Spotlight fitting issue?

You know, the little thing that plugs into your car's cig lighter socket.

I bought a couple, while it fits perfectly in my jeep's lighter socket, it doesn't work in 06+ civic's lighter socket. The socket diameter is a bit large, but I figure I can solve that with some shim, however the + contact point inside socket is surronded by a plastic guard (to prevent cig lighter from working?), so the convex bottom of spotlight doesn't make contact.

Has anybody encountered this problem? Any solutions?

Moving this to the Spotlights section...

Hi DM51, I'm talking about this spotlight, which I believe belongs under LED section.

Ohhhhhhh!!! OK - gotcha! LOL. I thought you meant one of those lamps you plug into the car socket. I'll move it back to LED Flashlights.

Thanks for the pic, as it does help to explain, and I can see it's not hotlinked, so I think it can probably stay there despite the watermark.

I bought 12 of those as gifts, but later found out that they don't fit most of the vehicles I tried them in. So mine have been sitting on the shelf for well over a year, waiting for a solution.

The "Super Socket" they make is not an acceptable fix for this problem in my opinion. Someone needs to come up with a simple inexpensive adaptor.

I have two of those, gave one to my father. He uses it in his 2008 Camry and also has that problem, he used the "shim clip" and it was still not making proper connection. He took it off and works good. Another plus is that the center console socket has a little spring cover(so debris does not get in) so the cover rest on the light pushing it down which makes a good connection.


I also noticed with out the cover pushing it down the light has some wobble. I would try and wiggle it around and then I would get a good contact.

Okay I managed to make it work on civic. I sanded the bottom a little bit and put a big round solder blob on, so it can make contact with the recessed socket + end. Also put a bit solder on the - contact of the light so it'll stay in the socket tightly. Not pretty, but can't be seen while inside the socket anyway. However since there is no spring tension to keep it there a little knock will break the contact. Not sure what to do, perhaps bury a spring in the solder blob? The heat from solder probably will kill the spring temper thou.

FireStik said:

The "Super Socket" they make is not an acceptable fix for this problem in my opinion. Someone needs to come up with a simple inexpensive adaptor.

Click to expand...

I agree, defeat the whole point of spotlight with that big attachment. Although short of make both + and - spring loaded like power adaptor plugs, I don't see how it can work with various sized sockets.

DM51 said:

Ohhhhhhh!!! OK - gotcha! LOL. I thought you meant one of those lamps you plug into the car socket. I'll move it back to LED Flashlights.

Thanks for the pic, as it does help to explain, and I can see it's not hotlinked, so I think it can probably stay there despite the watermark.

Click to expand...

Sorry about that, it was the first one I found. Now switched to another pic.