Tail Lights Not Working

sweetchik79 · December 9, 2015

I have a 92 lexus es300. Recently my tail lights have begun blowing the fuse and not working. Things Ive done so far is check the wires (they look good), checked the fail light indicator (it looks good), checked the relays where the wires from the trunk plug into the tail light (they look good), changed the bulbs and still nothing except it keeps blowing the fuse. Upon changing bulb I did notice that I had two sockets that were corroded so bad the bulbs wouldnt come out. So I cut them out and wired in some sockets that I had from another lexus. Please offer any suggestions to a possible solution. Thanks

gbhrps · December 10, 2015

sweetchick79,

You've done everything I would have done to this point. However, when you keep blowing fuses, then you have a dead short in the system to the rear tail lights that must be tracked down.

And that may mean pulling the inside trim panels/carpet/seats for the side of the car that the main harness travels, to up under the dash on the driver's side and the main fuse panel. I suspect it will be on the driver's side. Somewhere along the way, there may be a worn through spot on the main harness and the wires have shorted to the car body. That may also be the case somewhere up the driver's kick panel to the fuse panel. Then again, the issue may be from there to the main fuse panel in the engine compartment.

At this stage you may have gone as far as you can at diagnosing the problem, and a good independent mechanic or a shop specialising in automotive electrics is needed.

I don't want to scare you, but a mouse found its way into my diesel dually's engine compartment last year, and it took $860 to correct the no start /security system issue. Fourteen chewed wires under the fuse box was the problem. $750 was the labour cost of tracing down the problem. Good Luck!

sweetchik79 · December 10, 2015

Thanks for your helpful reply. Thankfully the issue was fairly simple. I had an aftermarket stereo put in a few months ago. My Dad accidentally wired a couple wires wrong. So we rewired the stereo and undid the wires that were done wrong. Now my stereo doesnt have a buzzing sound when its off and my lights work again.