on the 98 I just bought, I checked all the lights today. The license plate light did not work. it only took 2 hrs to get it fixed. I finally figured out I had no power to the the light. I decided to tap into the left parking light for a power source. Running a feeder wire around the liftgate and then trough the groummet was no easy task. i had to take one of those straight looking dental tools and 5 min epoxy a wire to one end. after getting the front part of the dental tool through the groummet, I pulled everything through with pliers. It also took a little time figuring which wire to splice into to. Bottom line, I fixed it w/o paying some mechanic .