Brake lights will not turn off, even when the car is off!

Maintenance/Repairs
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1

My brake lights will not turn off, and I have tried pulling up on the brake pedal, pumped on the pedal and pulled all fuses to make them go off, but no luck. Unhooking the battery is the last thing I want to do, as that seems like too much trouble right now, but I don’t want the battery to die either. Any suggestions?



Thanks!

2

The brake light switch above the brake pedal might be defective. Try unplugging that.

Tester

3

Thanks, I’ll go try that now. I am perplexed why when we tried pulling the fuses for ANY of the lights, nothing would go off. I thought that would at least give my battery a rest until I can get stuff looked at.

4

The brake light circuit runs through a fusible link not a regular fuse. That’s why they work with the ignition on or off.

Tester

5

Thank you for the explanation about the fusible link. That makes sense.

I tried to find the brake light switch, but did not see anything obvious, and do not want to unplug things at random, in case I screw something up…I obviously don’t work on cars :wink:

Guess I’ll have to unhook the battery at this point. :frowning:

6

The bracket or bolt or fastener that holds the “brake light switch” in place could also have come loose, such that the brake, released won’t press the switch in and turn the lights off. That happened on a car I once owned. Hope that helps.

7

Thanks to all who wrote in. I’m taking it in to get it looked at, along with a few others glitches that keep cropping up in my little old car. I’m glad to have owned it for 20 years though:-)