A friend of mine has a cracked left tail light lens on their North American 2015 Model S and I offered to help him replace it. There is body damage to the quarter panel where the light is located.
I purchased a used tail light from eBay, watched some videos to familiarize myself with the procedure, and started to remove the 4 Torx bolts holding the charge port assembly in place. The 2 forward-most bolts came out easily, but the 2 rear bolts just spin as if the captured nuts got damaged during his collision and are no longer attached to the car body.
After removing the 3 tail light lens nuts I tried to pull out the broken tail light, but it wouldn't budge. I don't know if that's due to it being held in place by twisted aluminum or does the charge port being in place prevent it from being removed?
I'm hoping that someone who has done this can confirm whether the inner charge port assembly does in fact need to be removed in order to remove the outer tail light lens.
I purchased a used tail light from eBay, watched some videos to familiarize myself with the procedure, and started to remove the 4 Torx bolts holding the charge port assembly in place. The 2 forward-most bolts came out easily, but the 2 rear bolts just spin as if the captured nuts got damaged during his collision and are no longer attached to the car body.
After removing the 3 tail light lens nuts I tried to pull out the broken tail light, but it wouldn't budge. I don't know if that's due to it being held in place by twisted aluminum or does the charge port being in place prevent it from being removed?
I'm hoping that someone who has done this can confirm whether the inner charge port assembly does in fact need to be removed in order to remove the outer tail light lens.
