How To Replace Headlights 2003-08 Toyota Matrix

Now from underneath the vehicle, I'm gonna take these two bolts out and there's a pushpin right here. Take that one out as well. Use a 10-millimeter socket. And I will just use a trim tool. Take that pushpin off. Do the same to the other side. Now, from underneath the bumper, there are two push pins. Remove those. Use a trim tool. Slide the centerpiece out. Slide the pushpin out. Now, we removed the tire on this vehicle, but you don't necessarily have to to do this job. Grab this panel and just slide it out of the way, just like that and then you're gonna access the bolt right here. Use a 10-millimeter socket to take that bolt out. You're gonna do the same on the other side. Then on the side of the bumper, just grab it. Just give it a pull. Just pop this out right here. Do the same on the other side and take the pushpin out. Just use a straight blade screwdriver or a trim tool. Now, this little bumper right here, there is a screw in there, so use a Phillips head screwdriver and remove those.

So I'm having a little trouble getting this screw out. So I'm just gonna take some pliers and this rubber piece comes off. Then you can grab the screw itself with some pliers and twist it to loosen it up. Take both of those out. Now, with all that off, you can just grab the bumper and just slide it, both sides. There is a piece of foam right here. Just try to go over the foam and just slide it out.

Now I'm gonna take a bolt out right here. And there is one right here. Use a 10-millimeter socket. Take both of those out. And then on the side right here, there's a bolt right there. Use the same 10-millimeter socket and just grab the headlight, lift up on the back. Then you can disconnect the connectors, push down on the tab. Slide them up, and there you go.

Now with the new light assembly, it's always a good idea to replace these bulbs that it comes with. These are test bulbs, so you wanna put new bulbs in or transfer them over from your other one. Now take the connectors, line them up and lock them in place, and line the assembly up. Now put the bolts back in right here, right here, and on the side. Get these all started. And then push the light assembly back into the fender and snug down the bolts.

Now we can take the bumper cover and just slide it in position. And you're gonna have to go over this foam piece right there. Make sure that's lined up. Now, before I put those bolts in, I'm just gonna snap the sides in, get this lined up, snap that in place. I'll do the same on the other side. Now, put the pushpin in and lock it in place and put these screws in and over here. And then tighten those down. You took these rubber bumpers off, put these back on, and then put the bolt that goes right here. Snug that up. Do the same for the other side and then reposition the inner fender well. Slide that back in position. Put those bolts back in. Push this pushpin back right there. Do the same for the other side. And take the push pins and install those right there and right there.

This is going to be a general tutorial on how to aim your brand new TRQ headlamp assemblies. Okay. So looking at your brand new TRQ headlamp assembly, you're gonna see where your low beam is and you'll see a little dot right in the center and that is the access point. Okay. So what we're gonna do is we're going to mark that with an erasable marker, just so it's easier to see. Next, what we need to do is measure from the level ground up to this point and take note of that measurement.

Now, we're just gonna pull the car up to our wall. On our vehicle, we remember that the measurement was 28 inches for our access point. Your vehicle may be different, but that's where I'm gonna put this take just above that 28 inches. We'll do the same on the other side. Okay, so let's just back the vehicle up straight back 25 feet from the wall. And now that we moved our vehicle 25 feet back from the wall, we're gonna start with our measurement here. That's where the headlamp center is. We're gonna go down 4 inches on the driver's side.

On the passenger side, we have our line here. What we need to do is go down 2 inches. To adjust the driver's side, we're gonna cover our passenger side headlamp. If you look at the backside of your headlamp assembly, you're gonna see something that looks like this. This is the adjustment. Some of these headlight assemblies have one, two, or even more of them, but you should at least have one. This is how we're gonna adjust the headlight beam.

Now, we're gonna lower the top part of the beam down to just below this line. When you turn the adjustment to the right, it brings the beam up. And if you turn it to the left, it'll bring the headlight beam down. And this is this way on most vehicles. Let's continue on to doing the passenger side. All right, we properly aligned our TRQ headlamp assemblies. Okay. And on the quality TRQ headlamps for a pickup truck, the procedure is gonna be the same. You're gonna find your center dot, mark it, and then you'll measure from the level of ground up to your dot.

So once your headlamps are properly adjusted, it'll be time to adjust your fog lamps. You'll notice on the driver's side, the focal point is all the way at the bottom right now. I would like to bring it up so it meets up with approximately the bottom of the focal point of the headlight. Some fog lamps have an adjuster, others don't. The ones that do have an adjuster, you would just turn the adjustment to the left or to the right to adjust the beam up and down to where it needs to be. Now, with your TRQ headlamps and fog lamps properly aligned, you can drive down the road safely.