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Brake light issue
smitht82 - 17/10/12 at 05:02 PM

I've fitted a set of rear LED brake light bulbs and when I turned on the lights they were on full power (like when your foots on the brake). I've then put the normal bulbs back in and now these are on full. I'm confused and wondered if anyone has come across this before or knows what it might be??


renetom - 17/10/12 at 05:13 PM

Hi
Is your brake switch working ok, maybe stuck ?
Good luck
René


Madinventions - 17/10/12 at 05:52 PM

If it's a mixed stop/tail bulb, then make sure you've got them in the right way round otherwise your brake light (brighter one) will be on instead of tail lights. The bulbs are normally vaguely polarised with the two little pins at different distances up the side of the metal cap, but they can be put in the wrong way round quite easily.

Try just taking the bulb out, and then put it back in rotated 180 degrees.

Ed.


smitht82 - 17/10/12 at 09:20 PM

Think I've tried 180 degrees already but will check again over the weekend - cheers


smitht82 - 23/11/12 at 01:19 PM

right, i've checked everything on the car and now think its the pressure sensor thats failed. Going to order one from MK and see if this fixes the problem.

(Note to self - don't fit LED bulbs again!)


matt_gsxr - 23/11/12 at 02:38 PM

Brake pressure switches are a well known point of weakness. Often requiring a lot of pressure to switch, but also breaking.


steve m - 23/11/12 at 04:17 PM

IMHO, i would ditch the pressure sensor, and fit a normal switch on the peddle

but is the pressure switch and IVA must have ??

Steve


britishtrident - 23/11/12 at 04:25 PM

quote:
Originally posted by smitht82
right, i've checked everything on the car and now think its the pressure sensor thats failed. Going to order one from MK and see if this fixes the problem.

(Note to self - don't fit LED bulbs again!)


It sounds more like the bulbs are incorrectly fitted or the wires swapped over.
Do a simple test what happens when you pull the wires off the switch ?


adithorp - 23/11/12 at 04:47 PM

quote:
Originally posted by britishtrident
quote:
Originally posted by smitht82
right, i've checked everything on the car and now think its the pressure sensor thats failed. Going to order one from MK and see if this fixes the problem.

(Note to self - don't fit LED bulbs again!)


It sounds more like the bulbs are incorrectly fitted or the wires swapped over.
Do a simple test what happens when you pull the wires off the switch ?


Agreed... or you've got the wrong sort of bulbs. Have they got two contacts on the base? Twin filament stop/tail bulbs should have. If you put a single contact bulb in you'll get what you describe.


smitht82 - 23/11/12 at 05:04 PM

Hi All,

Wirings still all the same as when it was previously wortking as i haven't touched this. I literally just put LED Bulbs in and then it went wrong. The Bulbs are twin filament and i've tried both LED and Normal Bulbs round both 180 directions. This is what is leading me to think the switch has failed but my only concern is that i would have expected the brake lights not to be on instead of appearing like the pedal is fully pressed (both filaments lit up). ??


garybee - 23/11/12 at 05:08 PM

Have you tried removing one of the cables from the pressure switch as suggested above?


smitht82 - 23/11/12 at 05:11 PM

I completely missed that bit. I'll give it a go tommorrow and report back