Brake light trouble with Carado

There’s now 24000 km in Carado’s display and it’s 1.5 years old. When I returned home from my last journey I notices that the third brake light up on the rear wall did not work properly.

I took a Phillips screwdriver and opened up the light. It was made by Hella, so I expected a quality product. There were 7 small 1.2 W bulbs inside the light. Most of the contacts were covered by rust. Only one light bulb was working and 6 were broken.

I used electric CRC to remove the rust from the contacts. There was water inside the light, so it was no wonder that this had happened. I replaced all the light bulbs with new ones. However, I had a lot of troubles getting the bulbs working.

It seemed that the contacts were unreliable and the mechanics was not so quality made after all. A small bulb movement could turn the light on or off. This was not acceptable and the brake light just cannot operate reliably while driving.

Could it be that the Hella mechanics are so cheaply made that the bulbs can be reliably installed only at the factory? It started raining so I had to leave the brake light as it was. I will take another try to see if I can fix it.