OMG I gotta do that!!!

 

I changed mine out to a high intensity Blue LED, and it lights up the switches much better than the stock white, and gives a nice blue glow around the interior at night. I got the bulb at Radio Shack for less than $5. They had several colors, but the high intensity works much better. I don't remember seeing orange, but you should check and see if they have one. Very nice addition IMO. Thinking of getting a black light for mine, which would make the white really glow on the window switch controls.

 

Here is a post from a couple of years ago that goes into great detail about changing the LED to a colored one. One is even orange. Great read of you are thinking of doing this mod. Hope it helps.

https://www.chevyhhr.net/forums/show...t=2853&page=15

 

Funny thing is, on the SS the window switches are on the door, so this little LED doesn't really light up anything in particular.

 

They switched it to a normal dome light in '09. Apparently they didn't think of this when they first changed the controls from the center console to the doors.

 

That is an understatement. The lack of interior lighting continues to frustrate me. The reading lights are a joke, since you have to hold anything you want to read directly under the rearview mirror to see anything. And the rear seat is like a dark cave at night.

 

Yup. I haven't seen such crummy interior lighting since the 1960s.

That stupid little light up top that started this thread just distracts.

I would like to be able to install a switch to kill all the interior lighting except the speedometer cluster. Not being a real young guy, I find all that stuff lit up on the radio and HVAC a distraction during night driving. I'm also disappointed that the range of the dash light dimmer control is so small. On other cars I've had, you could kill the dash lights altogether...

Stan M
Baltimore
08 HHR

 

I bought a piece of super thin, self adhesive, black velvet and made a tube out of it and put it up in the hold for the light, flush with the bottom of the bezel. (They use it to make jewlery boxes etc) The velvet doesn't reflect back much light so it makes it much less distracting than it was, only a faint while up there, no more than the backlit buttons on the mirror for onstar. In my Outlook, the have the same light but a black reflector like triangular piece that the light has to go through so that you can't see any light source from the seats. I like the way they did than much better.

 

I agree that the dome lighting sucks in the HHR (I have one with a sunroof and it only has the lights in the mirror for the front), but I love the little "spotlight" that provides the glow on the waterfall.

It brought back memories of my 1973 VW Superbeetle. It had a much lower tech, but innnovative projector beam "eyeball" on the lower part of the dash near the ashtray. This light had a standard incandescent bulb behind the "eyeball" lens. The lens was probably about 3/8" to 1/4" in diameter at most and could be swiveled. It had a spot coverage and was meant to light up the heat control levers that were next to the e-brake handle between the front seats.

For me, the HHR brings in so much of the past and present. My Superbeetle was the same color as Dandhcomputers', which is the reason that I quoted the post. (Beautiful Bug, by the way). Mine had a sunroof. The '73 was the last year before the somewhat larger impact bumpers that the '74 had and they were mounted a little lower.

Dandhcomputers, does you '74 have the eyeball dash light as well?

 

Funny, I had a '73 Super Beetle and do not remember the light you're talking about. Of course that was 25 years ago, and a lot of brain cells have died since then.