My BMW 2003 530i (great car) just developed two tics. First, the left turn signal is hyper - flashes at least twice as fast as it should. It’s been doing this consistently for over a month. Second and more recently, the dashboard has regularly said “check brake lights” for weeks but the brake lights look fine (took two people to verify, of course).
Recommended next steps? I hate to take it to mechanic for such little stuff.
Check all your lights, especially your turn signals front and rear. You have a bulb out.
Keith is correct about the bad bulb in the turn signal lights.
The message that’s telling you the brake lights are acting up MAY be due to a faulty high center brake light bulb or socket.
Is that message there ALL the time?
you have either a bad bulb, or an intermittant bad ground.
as an alternative, are YOU sure the third high brake light is working, with all bulbs lit? (you know the one in the rear window)
(although i would just replace all the bulbs, Maybe $10.00)
the cheapest thing to do would be to buy a pack of light bulbs, and replace the bulbs in front.
see if that fixes it.
if that doesn’t, use the two from the front and put them in the back. then make sure the high brake light is working correctly.
as a last resort, change the blinker relay, located in the fuse area usually under the drivers side foot area.