Why doesn't my cigarette lighter work?

[daveofedinburgh]

Bought a cig lighter socket USB charger thingy today, and it doesn't work.

The cig lighter itself doesn't actually work either (never tried it before!).

As can be seen in the pic, there's a little bit of metal which was floating about in there when I took the original cig lighter out- can anyone advise what this is?

Any advice generally on how to get it working?

P.S. I know the car needs a good clean!

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[colb]

Piece in your hand is the tip off a accessory plug that was once plugged in the socket and fell out.
It probably caused a short in the socket and blew the fuse protecting the circuit, check for a blown fuse in the fuse box.

Once fuse is renewed try the cig lighter plug again and see if it has power restored and heats up.

[daveofedinburgh]

Excuse my utter lack of knowledge, but if it is a fuse do I need to buy a new one and if so where do I get one?

[Fender2004]

You can buy fuses in any motor discount store, but it has to be the same rating as the fuse you took out.

Take the blown fuse with you to the shop and they should be able to help you

[alec.m]

When you take the cover off the fusebox there should be some spare fuses and some plastic tweezers to remove the fuses in there. Look in the handbook to see the position and rating of the fuse.

[colb]

Look at the underside of the fuse box cover to find where the fuse is for the cig lighter socket, there will also be a ist of what rate of fuse should be fitted.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v258/ ... iagram.jpg
Yours should look something like the diagram, cig lighter rated at 30amp
http://www.jex-electronics.com/images/jtb-046-30.jpg

[Geoff H]

Bare in mind that once you get your cigarette lighter working as it should not all accessory plugs are the same. Some years ago I brought one from Amazon to run some of my things from, the first wouldn't work in my Z3 but worked ok in one of my son's cars, I connected the seller who asked the make of car then said he would send me another that would work in a BMW, it looked identical but was very slightly longer and worked perfectly. I think there was a posting on here about cigarette lighter accessory plugs some years ago if you do a search

[bertiejaffa]

1st thing is check the fuse as people have said
2nd thing is the lighter unit itself might be knackered... it does come out from behind but I cant remember how.

Check the fuse first then we will tell you how to remove the unit

[Southernboy]

The unit has a little "key" which passes through a small notch cut out in the console hole at the 12 o clock position, ( I think - may be 3 o clock) then turned so the key prevents it coming out. It's a tight fit, and without the console out, you need to access from the driver side by removing the screws of the trim in the foot well of the plastic section there, then pull it away so you can get your hand in behind it to the ciggy unit.
Pull off the 2 wires which have spade connectors, then turn the unit until you feel the key line up with the slot in the hole. Then press it upwards so it can be removed from above. The little collar you see in the pic below, should come out with the lighter unit.
Alternately, there are two slots in the side of the metal lighter sleeve - you can see them in the first pic at 12 and six o clock - the small horizontal rectangular ones - the plastic trim which you can see around the unit at the top of the console in the second pic, has two small plastic protrusions which slot into those little holes, you need to get under the console and use a flat screwdriver to slightly flatten the metal lighter sleeve so it will pass upwards and out.