OK, my rear high light went out, (The center light in rear) and thought would be easy replace. Well you got to be kidding its a nightmare. Once I saw wasn't easy Plug-Play and you had to remove bunch of stuff I took car to Firestone. They looked at it and said NO WAY. Called my local Hyundai dealer, oh that's another story at 16 miles and 1 hour driving in Los Angeles to get too, and they quoted me $48 to replace. $48 to replace one frikken $2 bulb. I doubt could ever convince them to replace under warranty. Car is only 2 years old. What a horrible design.

2006 Hyundai Sonata LX
37K Miles

AHHHHHH


David

You mean the 3rd Brake Light Dave. I know the side Brake light took about 60

seconds! :57: Hey listening to the Roq of the 80's KROQ HD2 on the Internet.

Reminds me of LA, 79 Cent Gas, plenty of Hyundai Dealers, and Pioneer Chicken!

Check your manual. It tells how to replace the center brake light bulbs and it isn't difficult at all.

Easy to replace ? Not even. Biggest PITA bulb I've ever had to change ! If it goes out again it's LED assembly time for me.

Here are a couple of links - the first one is me griping about it and the second one is a pretty good how-to:

http://www.hyundai-forums.com/index.php?sh...3rd+brake+light

http://www.hyundai-forums.com/t18292-repla...-stop-light.htm

I' pay the $45, and taking a drive up the 405!

I would break the Brake light without question!

Excellent information in the above threads!

Wow.. Sad to hear it seems difficult to access and change those bulbs. I guess I will find out when mine goes. Hopefully not anytime soon.

Ok gang, thanks for the replies and it does seem like an incredible hassle. I take to dealer and see if they will repair under warranty.

Thanks,

Non-halogen bulbs are only warrantied for 12 months/12k miles from original warranty start date.

It is bad enough if you knew the ridiculous situation with Hyundai Dealers

and service in North L.A County. Now are you saying this service is not covered :whistling:
or are we just speaking about the cost of the bulb itself?

My 3rd brake light has been out for a while. It seems like very couple months I'm replacing one of my side brake lights. When I first went to change the 3rd brake light I was like WTF. How do I get to it. Glad to see it wasn't me being stupid!!! I think I might just end up getting the LED light to replace it, because I sure as heck won't want to go back in there and replace it again.

For what it's worth, this sort of user-unfriendly maintenance/repair procedure is certainly not unique to the Sonata.

I've been doing my own service work for 50+ years and can think of quite a few horror stories (especially when it comes to oil filter access).

And watch out when someone says "Oh it's easy". Usually this means the person giving the advice has only read something about it.

LAX Hyundai Superstore did the light service today and checked my ESC system because the light on the dashboard was coming on every once in a while.

They said the ESC warning light may of come on because of the rear light malfuctioning?????

Anyways, I'm not one to argue because they did it all for FREE.

Can't beat this dealers service....

David

Alright Dave. Of course driving anywhere near LAX can give me Heart palpitations.

And the last two times I was in Town, there were seperate Sig alerts (not sure they

have them in other Towns) with both the I 10, and I 15 closed down.

Well I guess not so quick - the ESC and ABS light went off today when driving.
Rear 3rd light was working

So after reading this thread I said to myself "Self, you have never checked the high brake light." I asked my wife to see if it was operational - it wasn't!

I printed out this thread, bought a 921 LL (long life) bulb and went to work. I must agree that changing this bulb is a pain in the ... fingers. Note that it helps to have long skinny STRONG fingers!

Anyway, I finally got the socket out and to my surprise - NO BULB!! :w00t:

Go figure.

After 30 minutes the brake light is now operational.

Regards,
GEWB

No Bulb, wow. :clap: I always see mine go off, or do I :whistling:

I just replaced my driver's-side brake light, for the second time. It's easy to do, but why are they burning out so soon? I thought it was my trailer hitch wiring, but it seems others are having the same malady. I'll try to find some long life buggers for next time. Probably Craig's fault.

Hyundai factory bulbs must have been from the absolute lowest Chinese bidder. They are crap and don't last long. Seems a lot of people are experiencing failures. I've replaced the license plate lights but that's it so far on my car. It's almost 3 years old now, 40,000 miles on it. Just checked to make sure everything else is working and no problems. When they fail it is going to be a lot of fun replacing them. Clearly Hyundai didn't even anticipate the owner might need to change these lights. Hopefully the next gen YF will be better when it comes to stuff like this....