Hi All,

I wanted to share a solved mystery with you in hopes that someone else might benefit. This is for X308, mine is a 2003. A few nights ago I started noticing that I would intermittently get the "Check Rear Lights" notification, with an odd pattern:
- Turn on the lights, everything fine
- Step on the brakes, everything fine
- Release the brakes, "Check Rear Lights"
- At this point the rear parking lights would be OUT. Not the side markers.
- Turn off the lights, turn them back on, parking lights are back on
You could repeat the whole thing from there. Parking lights went out after stepping on and then releasing the brakes.

After investigating, I found that if the left rear light harness was unplugged, the right harness would operate normally. Switch it with the right harness unplugged, and the problem would happen. But all the bulbs appear to work, right? Not right.
Take a look at the pictures - the left brake bulb had its bright filament terminal melt down - so that it was still operational but would cause a short with the low-level filament when it turned on!
Replacing this bulb solved the problem. But it was such an unobvious problem to have, I thought I'd write it up here for anyone else who might experience this odd light problem pattern.

Regards,
Garrison

 

Thank you for this! I have this problem with my new-to-me XJR.. It happens at random, as it did in your case. And the message comes up and goes away so fast, that I can't even get out to the back of the car to check the lights. Now I know what to look for

 

I had the 'normal' problem (sometimes Check Rear Lights at pressing the brake pedal)) coming back after 2 years of bother free operation (that time had the same problem as OP, a melted bulb causing all kind of strange issues).

Just re-bent all lips a bit, so the bulbs are held tight, cleaned the contacts, sanded all bulb contacts clean, and installed everything with a spray of contact cleaner.
Problem solved for an other 2 years ...

 

Cool I haven't been paying attention as much as I should, but I do believe my error message occurs when the brake pedal is pressed. As I mentioned to Convincor recently, that might be why the passenger side interior taillight cover was off, and laying in the trunk when I bought it.

 

I had the bulb issue first year I had the 308 (13); last year, I had the problem when touching the brakes (it was a bad SLCM).