Removing Carpet Change Tail light

[libraflo]

I have 2002 Taurus SES and need to replace the left tail light because the turn signal doesn't work. It has a plastic retainer which holds the carpet covering the tailight and I am having trouble removing the plastic retainer. It has what looks like a torx screw in the center of the plastic retainer. The retainer will turn but doesn't come out. Has anyone removed this retainer and can tell me how to remove it without breaking it? TIA

[shorod]

The threads in those plastic fasteners is not all that strong, there's a good chance you need to pull out on the fastener while gently turning it counter clockwise. If you're not able to easily get underneath the head of the fastener (you're probably pushing too hard with the torx driver) you can try pulling out on the trunk liner/carpet with one hand while turning the fastener.

-Rod

[shorod]

Now that I thought about this more, are these the type of retainer that are loosely threaded/slid over the three taillight housing mounting studs? The studs that hold the taillight housing in have torx ends on them that will accept like a 5mm socket to thread them in to to the housing. I have seen some vehicles that use these studs along with plastic "caps" to hold the trunk liner in place.

If the center torx part of these plastic caps is metal (see if a magnet sticks to them) then you can probably just pull/slide the plastic retainers off of the threaded stud.

-Rod

[libraflo]

I finally removed the retainer and the found out I had to put pressure on the retainer while turning it with the torx.
I used a gasket scraper between the backside of the retainer and carpet and put some pressure on the retainer while turning it with the torx.
Works great and I hope this may help someone else.

[shorod]

Thanks for the follow up. So you basically had to do what I suggested in post #2 above.

-Rod

[libraflo]

Yes and No.
The stud which had the torx was not part of the tail light assembly which has hex nuts.
It held the plastic shield next to the lower part of the trunk which overlapped the carpet and had to be removed to get access to the 5 hex nuts behind the carpet holding the tail light assembly.
There is another plastic retainer about 4 inches below the torx retainer which can be pried out.

[taurusffv]

The first time I needed to do this I went to an auto supply store and the sweetest girl (who said all her brothers and father work with and race cars) came outside to my car and not kidding had it done in 3 minutes flat.

The next time it happened couple yrs later I tried to do it myself-not so easy...so hard in fact I took it to Walmart after tearing up the plastic.

The young man at Walmart I kid you not spent 90 minutes trying to do this simple replacement of a burned out tail light. Before I left I discovered my dome light/power windows weren't working anymore-they tried to refuse to help with it until I pointed out that it took a girl 3 minutes and their guy was messing with it forever and clearly blew something in the process. They apparrently then replaced a spark plug and I drove away never to rtn to Walmart again.

LOL those tail lights are a very difficult "repair."

Man, I love this forum-year after year its always there for me.