wik009

About a month ago, the "rear light blown" lamp lit on the dash of my 2001 ES300. This was the first time I encountered this in three years and 60,000 miles of driving it. I checked and verified that the bulb for rear parking light was blown and purchased the two IDENTICAL BULB* from a part store and replaced both the left and right side. It turned out that another rear "marker" bulb on the driver side was out so I replaced that one with the identical bulb. Until yesterday, the "rear light blown" lamp on the dash was still lit and I couldn't figure out why because every single rear parking light was on!

The IDENTICAL BULB* mentioned happened to be Sylvania 194LL bulb at $2.50 each. It turns out that the old Sylvania 194LL bulb that was put in by the previous owner was on the high end of current draw so it never triggered the "rear light blown" lamp on the dash but as soon as I replaced both 194LL bulbs with a brand new ones, it was drawing less enough current to trigger the "rear light blown" lamp on the dash. The correct part that fixed the problem last night was Sylvania 2825LL. Aparantly, the 13.5V_5W 2825LL and 14V_4.6W 194LL current draw profile is different enough for the Failed Rear Bulb sensor on ES300 to trigger fault versus not_trigger a fault.

I am so happy that the "rear light blown" lamp on the dash problem is solved.