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Tail lights problems

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by KE2, Jun 5, 2008.

  1. KE2

    KE2 New Member

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    2005 Prius
    I have a 2005 Prius, and tonight I was pulled over cause both my tail lights were out. I've never had this happen before with my old civics, or with this car. But I had a little body work done on the car a couple of months ago at a toyota body shop that was full of incompetants. And I just had my car at Toyota to get new tires and do the inspection on Saturday. Has anyone else had this happen?
     
    #1 KE2, Jun 5, 2008
  2. Patrick Wong

    Patrick Wong DIY Enthusiast

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    It is fairly easy to access the taillight assemblies; open the hatch and remove the access covers. Check the bulbs that are not functioning - are the filaments burnt out?
     
    #2 Patrick Wong, Jun 6, 2008
  3. F8L

    F8L Protecting Habitat & AG Lands

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    At about 60k miles I had one burn out. Took less than 1min to replace it so I'm not going to complain. It's the only failure I've had.
     
    #3 F8L, Jun 6, 2008
  4. richard schumacher

    richard schumacher shortbus driver

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    I gather that this trouble started after the body work at the Toyota shop? If so take it back to Toyota and tell them to diagnose and fix their screwup. If the underlying problem is not found and corrected you'll have dead taillights until the end of time.
     
    #4 richard schumacher, Jun 6, 2008
  5. KE2

    KE2 New Member

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    Location:
    Suburbs of Philadelphia
    Vehicle:
    2005 Prius
    I'm taking it to Toyota tomorrow. They are the ones who did the inspection and changed the 4 tires and did an alignment on Saturday. Just a few days before I was pulled over. They said they doubted it happened because of that. The repair work I had was with their body shop, which is located in the same city but not at the dealership. They were total screw ups. I keep finding problems they created, nothing that has effected the over all performance of the car, but botched up cosmetic issues. I'm hoping it's not cause of something they did, because that could mean the car could start having mechanical problems.
     
    #5 KE2, Jun 6, 2008
  6. mfk

    mfk Junior Member

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    Vehicle:
    2001 Prius
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    N/A
    During the late Summer, I was having problems with the my 2001 not starting and needing to be jumped numerous times. At first, I simply thought that I likely needed to replace the battery; however, I discovered that the driver side tail/brake light bulb was staying on after the vehicle was turned off, light switch included, but only the tail light portion of the bulb remained on. At this time, I inspected all the lights on the vehicle, and I found that the passenger side tail light only was burned out, the brake portion worked fine.
    I then replaced the bulb on the passenger side, it's filament for the tail light was definitely burned out and broken. Having replaced this, the light that previously was staying lighted on the driver side now was out when the vehicle was turned off. I also decided to change the driver side bulb as well.
    My question is, how or what happened that the driver side tail light stayed on which drained the battery, but once I replaced the burned out bulb on the passenger side, the problem was no more? Curiouser and curiouser...

    Thanks you for any input, mfk.
     
    #6 mfk, Nov 17, 2012
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