Rear tail light issue

My passenger side taillight does not work. The center LED works fine as a brake light but when I turn on my lights the left is on but the right isn't. Both work fine when braking. Check fuses and nothing however the issue is only on one side anyway. Any thoughts? It's a 2009.

 

A 2009 Tacoma uses dual filament bulbs in the tail lights. Sounds like your running light filament is burned out, but the brake filament is still good. I believe the bulb is a 3157.

 

Unplug them both and swap them, yes they will not fit but this will verify that if it is the light or the wiring

 

get a voltmeter out to check for voltage at the connector with lights on.

 

Hmmmm. For some reason I thought the early 2nd gens had incandescent tail lights. My bad.

 

Good idea. Just did it and it works fine....so that means I have a bigger problem on my had. What now?

 

Sounds like you aren’t getting power to the tail pin of the plug. (Green wire)
The Stop and Tail use the same pin for ground.

 

So power is the green and the ground is the white/black wire? Thanks. And the switch behind the brake pedal wouldn't have any impact on the tail light would it? Brake light works fine.

 

No, that switch shouldn’t have anything to do with your problem.
If for some weird reason it did, you expect to see it on both tail lights.

Do the license plate lights work?

 

Yes both sides work. I'll have to get underneath it tomorrow. I did back into something months ago and bent the bumper a bit. Bent it back out but maybe I damaged the harness somewhere.

 

That’s possible.
The power for both the tail and license plate lights come from the same place.
The are spliced in for each light.

 

I just fixed a Tacoma like this at work, the left taillight was not working, but brake light was. Just as @TnShooter said, the green wire is power for the taillights and license plate lamps, and on the truck I was working on, the green wire was corroded about a foot back along the harness, where the insulation was rubbed thru. Thankfully, it was a simple fix, but do a visual inspection of the harness, and if something doesn't look right, take a second look there.

 

Thanks for the info. Does the harness run from front to back or does it run across the rear and then up the drivers side? Thanks

 

2005-2008 has incandescent 2010-2015 are fast and the furious lookin' LED's.

 

The main harness goes down the frame (on left side of truck), gets to the rear bumper where it splits off to the left side light assembly, then turns right down the rear most frame crossmember to the right side light assembly (and a couple branches to go to the license plate lights).

 

Harness routing and wiring diagram if you need it.