Three problems related to brake light have been reported for the 1996 Toyota Corolla. The most recently reported issues are listed below.
Rear tail lamp socket contacts are worn/loose which causes parking lights and brake lights to fail to show intention to brake and intermittently work. Repair or replace bulbs and/or bulb reseat adjustments do not help or only temporarily fix issue. Same problem as camry's of the same year (NHTSA campaign id number: 96v037000). All 92-97 Corolla's I witness have the same problem/issue with failed tail lamps but the filaments are still intact/operational. Requesting that Toyota replace sockets. Dt.
Brake, turn signal and parking lights replaced on four occasions, burned out.
The brake lights of my Toyota Corolla (1996 model) have been having some malfunctions on and off for at least a year. At first, I thought it was the bulb problem, so I checked the assembly myself. The bulbs are all ok. The bulbs will light when I touch the wires connections. The bulbs will be ok for a while (days, hours or days), but it will stop functioning some time afterwards. It seems there is a connection problem in the design of the tail light assembly. Since I am not an expert on it, I would like to report the incident. I have noticed the problem on same model cars on the road. To do a simple test, you may want to locate a 96/97 model with taillight blackouts. If the bulbs are ok, my statement will be valid.