So here is the deal. Had a problem with the right fog light blowing apart bulbs. Moisture right! Water was making it inside. What happen how? Broken lens, seal, housing, not that I could see. Some how the vent cap came off I found out when making the repair and was letting water in causing the bulb to fail.

The Toyota manual says to remove the bumper cover assembly to replace the fog lamp assembly. I thought that seemed a little extreme just to replace the assembly. But I didn't know the vent cap was missing so I found a replacement assembly on Ebay made by Eagle Eye for 30 bucks delivered much better than the OEM for 160. The old one had so much dirt and crap inside and it's got some kind of shield inside so cleaning out is going to be next to impossible.

Part arrived and it warmed up outside and I had time to deal with it but the last thing I wanted to do was remove the bumper cover just to replace the fog lamp assembly. I decided to take a look under the right corner of the front bumper cover. I knew the light assembly should be right there. There are three 10mm bolts on the bottom. Remove those you can release the inner fender shield from the clips in the bumper where the bolts what through. Then you can move the shield aside to gain access to the light assembly.

To remove the outer bezel that is around the light lens. I used a hook pick to release 2 of the 4 tabs. Start with the top corner toward the center of the vehicle first. Then the other two will release pretty easy.

Now looking at the passenger fog lamp. In the center of the lamp on your left side looking at it there is a retainer for the round lamp mounting pin on the lamp. I used my hook pick to get that retainer to release the left side of the lamp assembly. Just release it but don't try to remove it yet. There are two tabs retainers on the aiming mount that have the be released first. There is one on the bottom you can see and one on the top of the aiming retainer. When you get the aiming retainer to release the whole assembly can be removed.

Just reverse the disassembly order to install the new lamp assembly.

Few tips: When I loosed the inner fender shield the vent cap of the old fog lamp assembly fell out of the ground. I installed it on the new assembly and glued it in place making sure not to block the vent. The new assembly came with a U shaped rubber hose. Didn't care for it much. The new Eagle Eye assembly looks just like the OEM except for the mounting tabs have little vertical tabs on the mounting tabs they where to close to the end of the tab and they didn't allow the mounting tabs to fully seat in the spots on the bumper. I took a fine file and filed the vertical tabs back to match the OEM assembly. Was to only real adjustment needed to be made. The mounting retainer on the bumper on the left side you released earlier just pull it in a little more the help it snap in place a little firmer when you install the new assembly. I didn't move or change the adjuster during replacement but before you reinstall the inner fender shields check the adjustment before you do. Mine was okay.

So the manual isn't correct. You do not have to remove the bumper cover to replace the lamp assembly. But if your a flat rate tech I'll bet it pays more that way. I stopped for lunch half way through but total time is about 30 minutes if that.

Good info. Thanks for the post.

Have a problem with the right fog lamp. It's probably burned out; I've been using it a DRL using JA's writeup. Thanks JA! I love your writeups!

Been unable to get down to look at it, hoping to do it sometime in the future.

This is the closest I've been able to find for how to do this. I'm afraid I'm going to mess something up, and I can't seem to find the screws on the light housing itself. Is it just that one bolt holding it in?

I definitely appreciate this post very much as I had a very regular problem of moisture ruining my bulbs on the passenger side fog lamp as well. After being disappointed to learn that you are supposed to remove the front bumper to swap them I decided to experiment with LED bulbs.

It has been over 2 years since I first swapped to LED bulbs and I have had zero bulb failures so far. So, I would say that it's a nice upgrade and also solves the problem of having to remove the fog light assembly too.