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Having a Tail light replacement issue. I was able to remove the taillight from the body of the car. However, I cannot seem to locate where I remove the bulb or what it even looks like. In addition, I am unable to locate a retail store / Vendor that carries the replacement bulb ( any advice welcome).
Martez78, there is a reason why you are having a problem finding bulbs for the taillight as it doesn't have any. The tail light is all LEDs. they are soldered to an electronics board and for the most part, are not replaceable. As much as I hate to say this, if you have segments of the tail light that are not lighting up, this will mean that you will have to replace the tail light itself. With this being said, are complete functions of the tail light not working (ie, all of the parking light lights, all 3 of the reverse lights, etc). This would tell me that the problem is most likely not the tail light itself but something with the wiring leading up to the tail light. So, any info that you can pass on will help me.
On a side note, how are you with a multimeter. I can help you diagnose your car as I have the diagrams for your car. Also, has any work been done on the car recently in/near the trunk? Sometimes someone does something and ends up causing a secondary problem that only shows itself a few weeks afterwards.
Thank you so very much for your response, I honestly had no clue. Somehow there was water that got into the light housing. I managed to remove the light from the rear of the car and drain 90% of the water inside the light. All other lights work with exception to the brake light itself. The turn signal works just fine the reverse indicator as well.
Martez78, I would do a quick voltage check to make sure that the wiring is good. You will find that the tail lights are going to be a bit pricey. So, hate to see you spend the money on a new tail light just to find out that didn't fix your problem.
If you can get your hands on a multimeter, you will be measuring VDC (set multimeter to 20 VDC scale). You will then take a sewing pin (or other very slim metal object) and slide it down along side the wire in the #1 opening of the plug on the taillight (the driver's side taillight for you will have a white wire with a green stripe in this location and the passenger side will have a gray wire with a purple stripe in it). Just make sure not to let the pin touch anything metal during the actual check. With the help of a second person, Touch the red lead of the multimeter to the pin as you also touch the black lead to any bare metal part of the car and then tell the 2nd person to step on the brake. You should see the multimeter jump up in voltage. If you see it jump up over 8 VDC, then the wiring is good. If the voltage jumps up to 5 VDC, then you should also see a warning message on your dash indicating that you have a light bulb failure.
You don't mention if the running lights work or not on that tail light. I am a bit curious. I ask this as the running lights and stop lights use the same LEDs. But, these are powered from 2 different power sources. So, if you have running lights, then this almost guarantees your problem is a wiring problem. If they are both not working, then I would be suspecting the tail light has failed due to the water inside the housing.
Once again, I thank you. I checked earlier today to see if lights were showing. I'll enclose a picture so you can see what I mean. All other lights with exception of the brake light are working.
Martez78, in all of those pictures, I don't see the running lights on the driver's tail light working either. The side marker light (top of hte taillight) is working, but not the main portion of the tail light. So, based on these pics alone, I am 99.9% sure that your problem is the tail light itself, not wiring. You should have a long dim bar on the outside of the taillight next to the turn signal when you have the running lights on. I can see you attempted to have the running lights on because the 4 LEDs at the top are lit.
2013 XJL Portfolio Rear TailLight Replacement
