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Accessing a Car's Tail Light Bulb

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Mark Boudreau: Hi my name is Mark Boudreau from Spectrum Auto Painting and Collision Center. Today, I am showing you how to change tail lights and head lamps in your car. Right now I am going to show you how to access and identify the tail lamp, that needs to replacement on this vehicle. Let us start with little bulb handling caution. You need protect the bulb from contamination by either dirt or oil, you can do this either by wearing protective gloves like these or you can wear -- use a paper towel or cloth, either will work just fine. So I am going to put on my gloves and then we are going to open the trunk and access this left tail lamp on this 2004 BMW. Now each car is different so accessing the tail lamp or the head lamp requires a special procedure for each vehicle, sometimes it is quite obvious and in this case it is pretty obvious. But if is not you can look into your owner's manual and often you will find those instructions there. The idea is the same, remove the trimming covering behind the tail lamp itself, so you can access the back of the bulb or access the back of the lens housing itself to remove the lens from the body of the vehicle. In this case, we are going to remove a trim panel on the back side of this tail light, so we can access the burned out bulb. So I am going to reach inside and remove this trim panel. There is a small knob on the back side here which we can twist by hand, after twisting that we remove the backside of the tail light and we have access to all of the bulbs. Next I am going to show you how to remove the bulb, identify what type of bulb you need for replacement, re-install it and re-install the trim to complete the job.

Expert: Mark Boudreau

Spectrum Auto Painting & Collision Center

P: (703) 671-2402

When you step into Spectrum Auto Painting & Collision Center, you walk into an award-winning body shop that will immediately surpass your expectations. A clean reception area; greeted with a hello; comfortable seating; original art.The philosophy of the staff at Spectrum is "We are here to provide service. We just happen to fix cars." Mark Boudreau, who started Spectrum in 1993, says that when people More »