Thread: Brake Lights not working

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  1. #1 Brake Lights not working 
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    As a little background; the car is a 2000 Pontiac GTP with extremelly low miles, it suffered from a coolant leak, which had me spending the good part of a couple weekends replacing the head gaskets. The car sat outside for about a year before I could have time to repair the head gaskets. Now, everything seems to be dandy, except, out of nowhere, the brake lights stop working. They were fine until about 4 days ago.

    The top center third brake light works fine, but neither of my rear lights work. The blinkers, backup lights, and all the running lights work fine, just not the brake lights. I already replaced both bulbs, didn't help.

    I'm looking over these wiring schematics in the shop manual, and am having a hard time understanding how the third brake light could be working, but not the others... I'm very confused. Any help that could be given would be great, thanks in advance.

    -Mike
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  2. #2 Re: Brake Lights not working 
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    check fuses. there should be fuse for your brake lights.
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  3. #3 Re: Brake Lights not working 
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    Sorry, forgot to mention that.. I already checked all the fuses. I wish it where that simple.
    Is it possible for the third brake light to still come on if the brake light switch is broken. It doesnt seem possible. From checking the schematics again, it seems that after the brake light switch, there is a splice, and 2 wires break off. One wire goes to the third brake light, and the other goes to the turn signal switch. Is it possible that the turn signal switch could cause just the brake lights to go out if it went bad?

    As soon as I have more time, I will follow the wires with a test light, and try to find where the "break" in the circuit is. Until then, anymore ideas would be appreciated.
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  4. #4 Re: Brake Lights not working 
    SE Level Member jluca's Avatar
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    is your tail light filled with water, im having a similar issue, took my tail off last night found it was filled with water
    Last edited by jluca; 10-29-2010 at 01:09 PM.
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  5. #5 Re: Brake Lights not working 
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    Here is the update... found the info I needed on a more tech savvy forum, going to update here for anyone else who has a similar problem.

    There are 2 circuits for the brake lights after the brake light switch. One goes directly to the third top brake light. The other runs through the turn signal switch via the hazard signal. My turn signal switch needs to be replaced. These can run anywhere from $50-$400 depending on where you get it, and what condition. Hope this can help someone in the future.
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