How To Replace Taillight 2000-03 Nissan Maxima

Brought to you by 1AAuto.com, your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the internet. Hi, I'm Mike Green. I'm one of the owners of 1A Auto. I want to help you save time and money preparing and maintain your vehicle. I'm going to use my 20 plus years experience restoring and repairing cars and trucks like this to show you the correct way to install parts from 1aauto.com. The right parts installed correctly, that's going to save you time and money. Thank you and enjoy the video.

In this video we'll be replacing a taillight on this 2001 Nissan Maxima, same basic procedure for any 2000 to 2003 Nissan Maxima. The tools you'll need are a Phillips screwdriver, a regular flat blade screwdriver, and an 8mm wrench. A taillight replacement in a 2001 Nissan Maxima. Actually first what we're going to do is we're going to grab hold of this and it actually pulls up pretty easily, and off. There are a few clips we've got to remove, there, there, and there. And set it up here. So this guy has got a little combination, you twist it a little bit slowly, and eventually you can get a screwdriver in there and pull it out. And these guys, just pull out with a screwdriver. It's not as easy. Maybe a little bit. Now you can pull this back and your wiring harness is here, and you want to pull these white tabs off of these studs, maybe use a screwdriver to bring them off.

Then there's four bolts. And where you pulled the wiring harness from, there's two of those nuts. They're actually nuts that come off, 8mm nuts. Then there's another one, it's going to be hard to see it back in here, 8 mm, and one down here 8mm. It's all 8mms, not 10 mm. There are some other 10 mm nuts down here for the bumper cover. You just want the 8 mm ones. I removed my bolts and now basically what's holding it in is some adhesive type of stuff. Not sure if it's original. Maybe this car had the taillight replaced already, but basically now you just got to push out. What I'm going to do first is there's a connector right here and you just press a little button here, and see. That should come apart. I'm using a screwdriver to help out a little bit. Press the button. Now the taillight is disconnected.

Obviously what I'm going to do is replace the bulbs. You don't have to take anything apart. The bulbs can just be serviced from here just by twisting the bulbs and pulling them out. Okay, I've removed the four bulbs. Now, I'm just going to push it out. You can see there's all look, I guess I'm not sure that's original for this car. This bulb just tells me the taillight has either been replaced or resealed. Somebody just used a bunch of glue. That's how you get it out. Back in as just to reverse the procedure. Put it in. I'll just start with one of the nuts on here. We're going to start with the four 8mm nuts on here, and the last one down here. I'll tighten those up, and when we come back I'll put this back together. I've tightened the bolts. I've put the wiring harness back. Now I can put this back on. This first one, put it down in.

Actually, you know what? What you have to do is you do have to have it pushed out and then you want to push on the outside edge first, and get it down in there. Keep that in. These things are best if you pull the center out. And get it nice and lined up, push it in, push the center in. This is the last one. Hold it there, push it through the insulation. First, you need to put a seal into the hole, push it in, and push that through. Last but not least this trim panel pretty easily, just put the pins in.