Changing A Rear Bulb

[cleverdick]

The other day I had to replace a stop lamp on my '94. It had been a while since I'd had to remove the rear light cluster, and I was reminded that the procedure is not immediately obvious. (The handbook tells you just to go see your nearest Lexus dealer - as if there's one on every street corner, open 24/7/365 and that they would actually know what they were doing anyway.)

It's no good having spare bulbs in the car if you don't also have the right tools and you don't know how to get to the damn thing. (Yeah, you need tools to change a lamp in the rear cluster. Clever bit of design, innit?)

What you need is a trim removal tool (like a flat fork with two prongs) and a 10mm spanner. A decent #2 crosspoint screwdriver might do at a pinch.

First, pry out the black fasteners on the piece of trim that covers the boot sill. The trim piece then lifts vertically off. Next, pull back the boot liner to access two bolts on the far side of the cluster. (This is a bit of a fight as it doesn't bend easily.) Then undo the two bolts and the cluster should come out. It's held in by two locating pins on the centre side.

If you don't practice this beforehand you are likely to waste time undoing nuts that are irrelevant, making yourself late, rained-on, possibly trashing the boot liner and getting mighty hacked-off in the process.