Hello Everyone,
I was on my second set of tail lights after the dealer replaced the originals under warranty for moisture and some LEDs being out.
Unfortunately, water started getting into my driver side tail light again after a couple years, but I am well past my warranty period now so I would have had to buy the assembly myself.
I decided to at least try getting as much water out as I could and just deal with it to save the money. I was actually able to completely dry it out which goes against everything I have read being possible about these tail lights. I thought I'd share my process for anyone having the same issue.
I took the outer driver side tail light off the car with the 3 nuts in the trunk, took the halogen bulb out, and then shook as much water out of the housing as possible.
Once it was as empty as I could get it, I put it in a cardboard box and let a hair dryer run on medium heat blowing into the box until the heat completely dried out all the moisture.
I had the top of the box as closed as I could get it and then stuck the blow dryer through a small opening on the top so the inside could get pretty hot. Below is a picture of my stupid setup.
I then used clear silicon I got from Walmart for a few bucks to completely seal around the outside of the housing and then reassembled everything.
It's supposed to rain tomorrow so I will see if the silicon fixes it, but regardless, it seems like a pretty easy fix to get the water out. I had a lot of moisture all the way down the tail light housing and I always saw that the only fix was to get a new housing, but using a hairdryer and a box seemed to do the trick with very little effort. As long as the seal I made holds, it is 100x cheaper than buying a new tail light. I can provide an update after it rains tomorrow with extra pics of how they look on the car with the silicon.
Just thought I would share my experience in case anyone else was thinking about spending a ton of cash on new tail lights because of water leaking in. It really is much easier than it sounds.
I was on my second set of tail lights after the dealer replaced the originals under warranty for moisture and some LEDs being out.
Unfortunately, water started getting into my driver side tail light again after a couple years, but I am well past my warranty period now so I would have had to buy the assembly myself.
I decided to at least try getting as much water out as I could and just deal with it to save the money. I was actually able to completely dry it out which goes against everything I have read being possible about these tail lights. I thought I'd share my process for anyone having the same issue.
I took the outer driver side tail light off the car with the 3 nuts in the trunk, took the halogen bulb out, and then shook as much water out of the housing as possible.
Once it was as empty as I could get it, I put it in a cardboard box and let a hair dryer run on medium heat blowing into the box until the heat completely dried out all the moisture.
I had the top of the box as closed as I could get it and then stuck the blow dryer through a small opening on the top so the inside could get pretty hot. Below is a picture of my stupid setup.
I then used clear silicon I got from Walmart for a few bucks to completely seal around the outside of the housing and then reassembled everything.
It's supposed to rain tomorrow so I will see if the silicon fixes it, but regardless, it seems like a pretty easy fix to get the water out. I had a lot of moisture all the way down the tail light housing and I always saw that the only fix was to get a new housing, but using a hairdryer and a box seemed to do the trick with very little effort. As long as the seal I made holds, it is 100x cheaper than buying a new tail light. I can provide an update after it rains tomorrow with extra pics of how they look on the car with the silicon.
Just thought I would share my experience in case anyone else was thinking about spending a ton of cash on new tail lights because of water leaking in. It really is much easier than it sounds.