My rear driver's side brake light needs replacing. I've tried to do it myself, but it looks impossible. Am I missing something? Can I do this on my own or do I need to go to the dealer? TIA

K

You can do it yourself. I'm not sure what year your car is, so... I'm going to guess a 5th Gen. (2000-2003) Here is how:





There is a plastic cover that is covering the light assembly. Take that off, and the bulb connectors will be underneath. Grab it rather tightly, and twist it off. Should twist about 1/2 a turn. The bulb will come out attached to the connector. Gently press in on the bulb, and turn 1/2 a turn. The bulb should pop out. To replace the new bulb, just reverse these steps. You will have to push the new bulb into the connector, before turning it. Sometimes this can be a PITA, but my description makes it sound much more difficult than it is!

Thanks for the info. Actually, my car is a 2004 Maxima. I apologize for not specifying. Do the directions still apply?

I don't have the owners manual, but it should be about the same. It will say in your owners manual, under do it yourself - lights - replacement.

Here's write a up I did for changing the rear lights to LED's on my 04(same process though)http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=455704

(Beancooker, I can post this one up if you like)

The 2004-2006 are different from the earlier year models, and I've found no other answering this question correctly. But here's what I was able to do by poking around on our own.

Open the trunk and remove the rear upper "button" that holds the interior covers and the elastic net. To remove that button, take a screwdriver and gently pry the smaller thumbtack out of the button insert, then remove the rest of the button.

Gently pull the interior fender cover (you'll have to bend it some) to see two wire harnesses. You'll have to pull this trim from the upper rubber gasket, but goes back in place easily.

One harness is the back-up light (leave this one alone) and the other is in place with two fasteners. Under those fasteners are the 8mm nuts you'll need to remove. Carefully pull the fasteners off, or just start unscrewing the nuts (which may be partially hidden by these fasteners).

Once you get the two nuts off, then carefully pry the entire brakelight assembly straight backwards (which is attached to the small upper trim piece that borders the trunk. This assembly has two pop-in posts that will eventually give, and the whole assembly will separate. Replace any of the burned out bulbs as you normally do. Assemble in reverse order. Carefully slide the assembly into its two pop-in posts. You'll see the harness fasteners are push-on after you re-snug the two nuts. Make sure you push the trim back in, and reshape to the original contours.

Re-insert the button base all the way, then put the center thumbtack. Carefully reform the gasket around the interior trim

Hope this helps anyone with the same problem. The owner's manual is worthless for these bulbs.

Wow, thread from the dead.

jsmithsole wrote:Here's write a up I did for changing the rear lights to LED's on my 04(same process though)http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=455704

(Beancooker, I can post this one up if you like)

Yeah, post it up.

Here it is (summarized) 8 months later!!

After looking on the internet & calling Nissan directly to try to figure out how to get the tail lights out of these Maxima's (everyone agrees it is difficult), we found that after removing the 2 nuts inside the trunk that hold the tail lights on, you can slide a piece of nylon strapping tape behind the lamp, pull on the tape & the lamp comes free pretty easily. I'll post a photo soon.

Regards,

Frank @ Maaco-Fremont

Nice Info! Great Job man!