Tail light out and inspection is due...DIY?

Just a thought -- perhaps a call to your friendly local Toyota dealership with your car's VIN will let them look up the type of replacement bulb needed for the front lights.

 

If you want to look up or buy parts then call the dealer and ask for the parts department, not the service department. Good luck!

 

First I should say, that my mechanical aptitude approaches that of a mouse: pretty dumb, but fairly tenacious.
I was curious just how hard it is to get at the headlight bulb, and had a go at it this morning. Long story short -- it now takes me about two minutes to remove the driver side bulb, (I did not try the other one) but it took a good 15-30 minutes the first attempt. My car is 8 years old, so the housing cap was the biggest chore to remove. Lucky for me I have small hands for a fellow, so I was able to reach down and put my entire hand on the cap, press and then it finally rotated the bit needed to remove it. Once you get the cap off, the rest is a downhill job.

Orientation and lingo:
front: looking from the back to the front of the car
up and down: as expected
lateral: towards the outer rim of the housing
counter/clockwise: looking at the head (or cap) of the bolt.

I first watched this video a couple of times. Thanks Jay!

Jay was unable to video the retaining clip holding the bulb in place, so here is a picture:
The picture is taken after the housing cap, power cable, and bulb have been disconnected and removed/moved.




This picture is taken looking towards the front of the car, at an oblique angle.
small arrows outline part of the outer housing;
Inside the housing you can see the hole (outlined by a red circle) where the bulb fits in, and a retaining clip outlined by yellow (and a bit of red) lines below the hole and above a rectangular metal. The hole and clip look like they are eccentric in the housing, but that is an artefact of my oblique view, they are actually in the middle of the housing. You can also see white twisted braid near the small red arrows. This is the electric cable that has been disconnected from the bulb and moved to the side.

Once the new bulb is inserted (just rotate it while pushing a little until it locks in place), rotate the clip upwards. The sides of the clip will hug the bulb, and the last bit of straight clip (now above the bulb) hook on to (not in picture) little arms. The terminal little squares are for you to grab hold of. Each clip side is latched on to its arm by pulling it lateral (outwards) a bit, then forwards and the letting the arm spring naturally inwards