How To: Replace Tail Light Bulbs on a Honda Pilot

Name: How To: Replace Tail Light Bulbs on a Honda Pilot
Uploaded: 2016-07-10T16:29:10.000Z
Duration: 3 min 46 s
Channel: TightWadDIY
Description: The Honda Pilot was not designed with an easy way to remove the tail light assembly. The pins that hold it in place make it difficult to pull the assembly off of the vehicle. After trying several methods, I created one that worked well for me. Do this at your own risk because there is always a chance you may crack your tail light assembly.

TightWadDIY

899 followers

Jul 10, 2016

The Honda Pilot was not designed with an easy way to remove the tail light assembly. The pins that hold it in place make it difficult to pull the assembly off of the vehicle. After trying several methods, I created one that worked well for me. Do this at your own risk because there is always a chance you may crack your tail light assembly.

Welcome back guys, this is the Tightwad and this video is going to show you how to replace the brake light bulbs, or any of the taillight bulbs for that matter, on your Honda Pilot. On this particular vehicle, there are two red lights in the back of the car. The top one is the taillight that's always on, the bottom one is your brake light. It is on all the time, but it glows brighter when the brakes are applied. So that's the one that's bad on this car. I'm going to show you today how to remove this assembly without cracking it. You have to be very careful not to pry on the corners here, or down here, or pry with anything narrow in the middle even, because you can damage your taillight. So I'll show you the way that I was able to get mine out successfully without causing any issues. So the first thing you have to do is open the back, and you'll see on the side of the taillight, you have two screws that you need to remove that allow you to remove the taillight assembly. Alright, so you see my wife's pushing the brakes, and this side lights up, and let off and push again. And this side does not light up when she pushes the brakes, so we know that it's the middle bulb that needs to be replaced. Alright, so I watched a few different videos, saw a few different strategies, one involving a string wrapping around here. It didn't work well. The string kept breaking, and I honestly couldn't get it far enough down here to really get a pull on it. The reason is there's two pins, one here and one here, about two inches from the top, two inches from the bottom. So what I did is I took my plastic putty knife and got it in here, and wiggled it as much as I could. That gave me a little bit of a gap behind the light. I then couldn't get enough torque with the plastic putty knife, so I got my wide metal putty knife and slid it in here like this. I took a rag just so that I wouldn't accidentally hit the car and mar the paint, and then I took a hammer and I lightly tapped from this side until the headlight pops out. You'll notice when it comes out because the light will easily pull out of the system. Alright, so now to replace it, all I do is turn this counterclockwise and the whole assembly lifts out. You can see the bulb is kind of black. I'll lift it out. It'll be hot if you've had it on, but it's black. Then I bought my replacement bulbs. They're a 7443, so 7-4-4-3. I just bought them at Walmart, but you can buy them at any auto parts store too, I'm sure. You simply put it back in there, wiggle it until it lines up, and then turn it clockwise. You'll feel it lock into place. Alright, so to put it back in, remember you have your two plastic clips here. They go in the two holes right here and here. So you just line them up, and once you get them all, everything all lined up with the plastic clips in the right place, give it a little push, you'll feel it snap into place. Then you replace your two screws using your Phillips head screwdriver or a number 8 socket, and you are good to go. Make sure you test your lights to make sure they're working properly before you start to drive. If you found this video helpful, give me a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel. If you want to see a video showing how to restore your foggy headlights to clear again, click the video in the top left. If you want to see a video showing a 5 minute cheap fix to repair a leaky toilet, click the video in the top right.