Car fuse box location | How to replace a fuse in car

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Which fuses can be safely replaced in a car?

Cars have at least two sets of fuses:

One inside the car, somewhere below the steering wheel
One inside the engine compartment, somewhere near the ECU and battery.

While any car owner can attempt to replace a fuse inside the car, it is not recommended at all to replace a fuse inside the engine compartment, unless having a deeper knowledge of car mechanics and the associated electronic systems . The set of fuses under the hood do feed electronic and injection systems, so any fuse failure denotes a problem that needs to be diagnosed and fixed prior to replacing the fuse.

It's a bit different for the fuse holder inside the car, which feeds electrical items like A/C, cigarette lighter socket, horn, headlights, lights, windscreen wipers, etc. There's no harm in trying to replace a fuse in this case, to see if this fixes the problem; or else the fuse will blow again if there's a persistent issue, which only impacts one of those accessories, while the car can be still driven.

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Location of the fuse box inside the car | Access to the fuses

The fuse holder (fuse assembly, fuse set, fuse box) is generally fitted behind the plastic panels that are below the steering wheel, or, behind a specific access trap to the side of the dashboard, as shown in the below Renault Trafic and Dacia Duster vehicles.

The relevant plastic cover or panel needs to be pulled out for accessing the fuses behind the dashboard:

On this Renault Trafic van, the coffee cup holder has to be pulled out of the dashboard for reaching the fuses:

This access trap built in the car dashboard of the Dacia (or Renault) Duster, allows accessing the fuses:

Fuse identification in a car - fuse symbol table

The fuse layout and identification can be found in any of:

The back side of the fuse cover
The user manual of your vehicle

For the latter, just go to the index, search for "fuses" and find the page.

Fuse layout in a Renault Trafic van (also Opel Vivaro, Nissan Primastar):

Fuse layout in a Dacia (or Renault) Duster SUV:

Checking a car blade fuse

Proceed as follows:

Identify the fuse
Pull it out with the specific tool found attached to the fuse box cover panel
Inspect it if blown: simply look at the internal U shaped metal conductor inside, and check if interrupted (blown) or continuous (normal).
You can indeed use a multimeter to check for continuity between the two legs of the fuse.

Replacing a car blade fuse

You need to use a fuse:

Of the same size, because there are two different sizes, large and small
Of the same rating meaning replace a 10A fuse with a 10A fuse, etc.

Replace the fuse and check if the problem is fixed:

If not, you know that the problem is not due to the fuse, and that the fuse blew up to protect the wires due to a fault in the device it feeds.
If it blows up again immediately, then you know that there's a fault in any of the device it feeds or the electrical wires that go up to the concerned equipment.