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fontaine666, if you have questions after doing what I said in post 6 referenced by Dell, let me know and we can go into more detail based on what you find.
I have checked the switch thoroughly, I even went and bought a brand new one, installed it and it didn't work.
The lights stay on full glare even with the switch removed completely.
With the new switch installed and driving, the cabin light was coming on and off intermittently. So I removed the new switch and that stopped. Now there is no switch on, and the brake lights are still constantly on. To me, and my lack of understanding, it looks like there is a wiring issue, bad earth somewhere maybe. This is probably beyond anything I can do.
Worryingly, last night I started to hear a ticking type noise coming from the dash, possibly behind the dials. Do you think this could have something to do with the electrical issue? I am pretty furious/gutted about it all, only bought the bloody thing 2 weeks ago, the guy I bought it off must have known about this and still sold it to me. I'm just praying it can be fixed and cheap as possible. Any ideas what this ticking sound might be?
fontaine666, I would first say to pull fuse F51 in the passenger bay fuse box. If that turns off your tail lights, then odds are your problem lies in the connector at the brake switch. If that doesn't make things better (ie, brake lights remain on), then I would say to access the boot/trunk and disconnect each tail light and watch the 3rd brake light. Does unplugging one of the tail lights cause the 3rd brake light to go off? If yes, then you most likely have a problem internal to that tail light. This is where you can either buy a new back plate for the tail light or a whole new tail light assembly (wrecking yard?)
If you are still having issues after these checks, let me know as this will most likely drive us into hand over handing the wiring unless you can ask the seller what he did recently to the car to get an idea of where to start looking. Sounds like the seller tried to add something to the car and it went south on them. This is where looking at the wiring and looking for electrical tape may be a big clue.
Shot a picture of my 2006 (your '05 should be the same). 51 is the top row 3rd from the right (7.5). And yes 3rd brake light is the led strip at upper part of rear window.
Last edited by Dell Gailey; 12-14-2018 at 10:31 AM.
I tried removing each bulb but for the life of me I couldn't extract even one of them, I was trying to twist it off, maybe I was doing it wrong.
What I did do was remove the wire terminal thing that goes into the whole unit on each side one by one. When I removed the rear left the 3rd brake light was still on, when I removed the rear right the 3rd brake light came off.
Does this indicate what you were saying or would disconnecting the terminal thing (forgive my lack of knowledge) turn the 3rd light off anyway?
Do I need to do each bulb to be sure, if so, how I do I remove the bloody things?
Also, it looks like when I removed the terminal thing (yes I know you hate it by now) the brake lights stayed on on the rear left section.
To remove the bulbs, you need to remove the light assembly. There are 2 (1 each side) of pressure tabs that release the assembly. Use care in applying pressure to remove.
Fontaine, what you describe is saying that you have a problem in the right rear tail light assembly. Before you tear into things too far, look at the pins in both the plug and the connector on the tail light assembly. You want to make sure that all the pins are a nice silvery color. Specifically, look at pin 10 (as I recall) and see if that is discolored. The ground wire for the tail lights can see a lot of current and if it gets any sort of resistance to it, it will overheat and create all sorts of issues and interesting problems.
Assuming hte plug is good, then you will need to remove the tail light assembly and then this will allow you to remove the back plate of the tail light assembly. You will then want to remove all the bulbs from the plate and make up the plug that you removed. From here, start installing the bulbs one at a time, watching the 3rd brake light. When the 3rd brake light comes on, that is your bulb that is completing the circuit, causing your issues. Odds are, you have daytime running lights and what is happening is your tail light/running light bulb is not in the correct orientation and it is shorting the running light circuit to the brake light circuit, causing the bulbs to be on full brightness. Simply removing the bulbs and reinstalling them properly should fix your issue.
As for the bulbs, when removing them, push the bulb into the socket slightly and then give it a gentle twist. This should allow the bulb to slide out easily. If you have the wrong bulb in the socket or you installed the bulb backwards (some bulbs have little posts on the sides and they may be at different heights, so pay attention), that can cause the bulb to be difficult to get installed/removed. This would also lead to the bulb potentially not being properly orientated, leading to crossed electrical circuits.
Wow!! Very odd assembly. Never seen one like that and no posting ANYWHERE (pics, videos, forums, etc.) that I could find shows that type rear light with the horizontal back up light strip.
I did finally find the assembly on forum sponsor site and they don't even stock it.
12-13-2018, 07:42 AM
