Tail Light Replacement
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Senior Member
The Family
SL Member
Joined: Nov 2005
Posts: 118
Tail Light Replacement
Could anyone tell me the process of changing out my driver side tail light on my tC. I was working on it last night and just couldn't get the thing out. Any help would be very much appreciated.
Senior Member
Team ScionEyed
SL Member
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 1,092
From: Siloam Springs, AR
I will be making a DIY about this within the next couple of days, but I realize that that might not be soon enough for you.
I removed my tail lights last weekend and found that I had to remove the bumper. There might be a way to do it without removing the bumper, but I don't know what it is because there are clips on the bottom of the light that hold the bumper.
The bumper is pretty easy to remove though. There are 2 screws in the rear wheel wells (1 in each), 2 screws on top of the bumper (under the trunk hatch lid), and 3 plastic "rivets" on the bottom of the bumper. All of these must be removed.
Once all of those are out, firmly tug on each side of the bumper to "unsnap" or unclip it from the car... once both sides are unclipped, it should come right off.
The tail lights will the need to be unscrewed. From the inside of the trunk, there are two covers that cover up that back of the tail light. Remove these to access the tail light. There are 3 10mm nut/bolt (kind of like a triangle pattern) on the back... one of them has a white plastic holder (hold the wire for the lights) and one of these bolts is longer than 3". Because of this long ___ bolt, a deep socket or a open end / box end wrench is needed. After these nuts are removed, unplug the light.
The light should now be free, but you might need to give a good tug on the light because of some more clips that hold the light in place. Pull straight out and you should be fine.
Voila!
Like I said, I will be doing a write up on this, so if you can wait for the pics, it might help more. But this should do just fine too. Hope this helps!
I removed my tail lights last weekend and found that I had to remove the bumper. There might be a way to do it without removing the bumper, but I don't know what it is because there are clips on the bottom of the light that hold the bumper.
The bumper is pretty easy to remove though. There are 2 screws in the rear wheel wells (1 in each), 2 screws on top of the bumper (under the trunk hatch lid), and 3 plastic "rivets" on the bottom of the bumper. All of these must be removed.
Once all of those are out, firmly tug on each side of the bumper to "unsnap" or unclip it from the car... once both sides are unclipped, it should come right off.
The tail lights will the need to be unscrewed. From the inside of the trunk, there are two covers that cover up that back of the tail light. Remove these to access the tail light. There are 3 10mm nut/bolt (kind of like a triangle pattern) on the back... one of them has a white plastic holder (hold the wire for the lights) and one of these bolts is longer than 3". Because of this long ___ bolt, a deep socket or a open end / box end wrench is needed. After these nuts are removed, unplug the light.
The light should now be free, but you might need to give a good tug on the light because of some more clips that hold the light in place. Pull straight out and you should be fine.
Voila!
Like I said, I will be doing a write up on this, so if you can wait for the pics, it might help more. But this should do just fine too. Hope this helps!
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SoCal tC Club
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Scinergy
Scion Evolution
Joined: Oct 2004
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