I'm gonna skip the long back ground rant about the things I hate about new cars and just vent on the latest reason: brake light switches and is a lock nut really too much to ask??
My girl picked up a brand spanking new 2020 Jeep Renegade Trail Hawk and yes, it is pretty much a Fiat 500 (L?) but she's happy and this should end me having to go pick her up at work when it snows. Youtube the overland test drive videos for yerself. All things considered, I'd probably be happier with a AMC Eagle but like I said, skipping that part of the rant.
She decided she wanted the metal pedal dress up kit and why not. Ordered it, opened the box, instructions by ikea but pretty simple. Slip new gas pedal over the old one and snap it in place. Unsnap original brake pedal pad and snap the new one in place. The big rubber nipple on the pad that goes in the hole on the plastic pedal doesn't unsnap that easily. Instead of just grabbing a utility knife and cutting the thing, I worked on yanking it off and finally got it. In the process I pulled the brake pedal up far enough to unsnap the plastic clip that holds the pedal to the power booster push rod. Fairly stupid design, fairly idiotic of me, didn't take that long to get it snapped back together - the first time.
Gave it a test, figured out that the car thought I had my foot on the brake. Not just brake lights on but shift out of park and push to start working without touching the brakes. Still 1/2 way in idiot mode I fiddled around with the brake booster clip until I decided I had it right the first time and the problem was the brake light switch got misaligned. I mean it doesn't happen on old cars but hey, not a complete idiot. Yes, I did spend entirely too long asking google where the @%@#$ thing was but it turned out to be time well spent because I learned a new thing to hate about snap together cars:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo3G2XKxkbsIn the light of day, follow the plastic brake pedal until ya come to the plastic switch, twist it to unlock it, snap it out of the mount. Toss it over the pedals to get slack in the wire harness and unsnap the connector. Exact part different than the video but same idea except no convenient button top to pull out - ya gotta grab it with pliers and give it a tug and ya can feel it snapping to different lengths. Cork screw it back in and snap it in place and dang, didn't pull the plunger far enough out. Snap it apart, pull the plunger out some more, now it won't go back in because pulled it out too far. Back to google bookmarks and take note of what the default setting is - 17mm from tip of plunger to body of switch. Snap the plunger to that length, snap the switch back, working like new.
It "only" took like 8 hours to over think the whole thing and do what turns out to be a legit 5 minute job - if ya know what yer doing. My main aggravation here is that I shouldn't have had to if the @%#$ thing wasn't snap together in the first place. I mean what's so hard about loosen the lock nut, move the switch, tighten it back down that it had to be re-engineered?? On a side note, apparently I wasn't that stupid for screwing it up in the first place. Found a lot of forum posts about people getting their foot stuck under the brake pedal and doing the same thing trying to pull it out.
