Help... bulb replacement for 'Rear (Third) High Mount Brake Light'.

80sGuy

Member
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2000 Mazda Protege LX Auto
I discovered that my rear (third) high mount brake light bulb is out and I'm having a hard time removing the housing to get to it. I recently had my windows tinted and I'm not sure if the guys did something or forgot to plug it back in afterward. But then I'm not sure, maybe it's been out way before I brought the car in....and how the hell did they remove it for the tint? Anyway, I gotta get the bulb replaced. I'm sure most of you guys have done this before, what's the magic?

Oh, I've searched like usual but came up crap, nada!

Thanks!
 
I actually removed the whole back cover and from there i dismounted the third brake light.
U just got to lower your seats and theres 4 "plastic screws" or whatever they are called.

When u remove those, the whole thing pops right out.
It takes 5 minutes max.

I could send u some pictures later tonight
 
Don't worry about it CivicCity, I already got it taken care of. I did locate the 5 or 6 push-in tabs behind the seat when folded down, but the problem is the panel would not come off unless I remove the three baby seat anchors off and that's just way too much work. So I managed to grab the high mount brake light housing with both hands, slowly pushed it away from me towards the rear glass, then 'lift' the (other) end towards me and it slipped right off. There are four tab hooks underneath the housing. I took a good look at them and they are designed to be removed that way. I should of just used this method right from the beginning could of saved myself 25 minutes. Now getting to the bulb was another challenge. Two things I learned:
1.) You DO NOT need to take the whole rear dash cover off to replace the third brake light bulb, the housing slips right off and those tabs look unbreakable, they're more like heavily molded hooks.
2.) The bulb listed on Auto Parts stores nationwide is '7440', which was totally wrong and a completely different type of bulb. The correct one should be '7506' (12V 21W)
 
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