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Both of my license plate lights were out. One bulb checked good, and the other checked bad. All power/ground wires to the lights were dead except one 12v wire (brown). I refuse to pay $80 for a license plate bulb. I also refuse to rip the huge painted panel off the back of this car and risk cracking the painted surface, and breaking 20 year old plastic clips. So... I purposely broke the side clip off of the dead light assembly. This allowed me to wiggle the light out of the trunk lid WITHOUT removing the large painted panel. Then I cut the sealed light assembly apart. I ripped out the overly complicated circuit board, and hard wired in a generic 194 LED bulb. Taped the housing back together, and popped it back into the trunk panel. The extra tape around the perimeter of the repaired light assembly made it a tight fit, so I'm confident it won't rattle or fall out. I rewired both lights to run off the one brown wire I found that was hot, and made a new ground wire. I wired them both to the same power/ground. Total cost $1.50.
Procedure:
Remove 50 plastic rivets in the cardboard trunk lid liner
Test the bulbs to see which ones are burned out.
Break off the large side clip of the bad license plate light assembly. This will allow enough extra wiggle room to push and twist the light out from under the large plastic external cover panel
Pry, fight and curse to remove the rectangular external trim piece around the light assembly. The plastic clips are on the inboard and outboard sides of the trim, and practically impossible to release without breaking them.
Cut apart the light assembly, and wire in a new 194 LED bulb
Check polarity to make certain the LED light illuminates
Reassemble
Last edited by cyclehead; Jan 2, 2026 at 03:12 PM.
I usually prefer OEM over anything, but why Toyota chose this complicated design for just an LED!? they made a motherboard like circuit just for a single LED! Good job man, no one should spend $80 on a bulb even if it's made in Japan. I have a 2008 GS and one of the things I dont like about it the dim interior lights which is due to this poor design is irreplaceable and so dim.
