Recently I had to take my daily driver, a 2013 Ford Escape on a long day trip to pick up my oldest son in Philadelphia. It was a about a 5-6 hour trip each way. Part way on the trip down from Massachusetts one of my brake lights went out. Of course being a relatively modern vehicle it tells on my dash. Of course midway thru the trip I had no way to fix it with not tools or time to fix it I had to hope I wasn't pulled over by a observant officer of the law until I got home.
Well I did make it home and the next day I went down to the local O'Reilly Auto Parts and picked up a new brake bulb. I did a quick search on Youtube and sure enough I found someone changing a brake bulb on a Ford Escape like mine which was very helpful
All of what I needed was an 8mm socket with a long extension and a small ratchet, a flat head screw driver. The bulb I used was a Sylvania 3157.
First you have to open the rear hatch. There are two bolts under two round plastic caps to remove the tail light. They must be pried off. I used a worn screwdriver with a narrow blade. This will work but it did mangle one of the caps so use care when prying off.
Using your 8mm socket you remove these two bolts. They're not torqued down much so they come off fairly easy. Now the only thing holding in the housing on is a clip that is under the forward part of the taillight. It's just pressed in but takes a some pushing force towards the rear of the vehicle. This is kind of tricky as their is only one set of wires going to housing and you don't want to yank and damage them either. I'd advise watch the above video I've posted above. With the the palm of one hand tried and hit towards the rear of the vehicle while using your other hand preventing it from flying off when it suddenly comes free. Please watch the above video first before attempting.
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| This is clip under the taillight. |
Once off their is one connector that easily pulls off and you can easily change the bulb(brake or reverse light) you need. I replaced the brake bulb on mine which just required a quarter turn and pulled out the defective bulb and replaced it.
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| Only one connector to the housing. |
Then to reinstall you just do everything in reverse. The whole process, once I got everything together, was maybe 20-30 minutes. When you restart the brake light bulb warning may reappear momentarily. I just tapped the brakes once and the dash warning disappeared. I hope this helps and don't be afraid to check out the attached YouTube video as I found it very helpful. This process you can also change your back up bulb too. Thanks for coming by.
