Hiya all,
My father has a Rover 98R 620SLi. He has owned the vehicle nearly all its life. He always seems to have problems with the brake light bulbs. When one fails, he'll replace it. Then a few days later one may fail on the other side. It'll then be fine for months. Then the first bulb replaced will stop working. After a hefty tap on the rear cluster all is fine again.
Anyway, the other night around 2200 the car was moved approximately 10mtrs. At around 0400 my father noticed that the brake lights were still illuminated. He went to check the car, and found the brake lights giving off a lot of heat. After checking that the brake pedal wasn't stuck. He checked the clusters by banging them one by one. The lights eventually went out.
This weekend, i've got a chance to look at the car. I think its an earthing problem in the boot. I think the earth strap for the clusters must be faulty. I don't have the Haynes manual can anyone tell me if my diagnosis sounds ok. Or am I barking up the wrong tree?
Where is the earthing point in the Rover 600 boot? Is this a common problem?
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306 2.0 SE Cabriolet
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I would check out the BL switch it may be sticking on.it should be above the pedal under the dash.not certain of 600.may be wrong?
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You've got two distinct problems.
1. Brake lights appear to fail, but can be fixed by thumping light cluster.
Presumably your father didn't need to replace the "failed" bulbs because just disturbing them would have fixed the problem. Certainly sounds like bad contacts. But I wouldn't blame the earth connection - normally the stop/tail/indicator lights in the same housing share the same earth connection, so an earth problem would not be restricted to just the brake lights. Earth problems often show up as lights interfering with each other - e.g. indicators plus tail lights together make the tail lights flicker.
Check the light cluster housing for tarnish around the bulb contact points. And make sure the multiplug makes good contact - I had a recent fault where the spade connector inside the multiplug was a bit loose, so when the multiplug appeared solidly fastened, the spade was only just touching the contact.
2. Brake lights are on when car is parked.
This is a puzzle. Normally, brake lights only work when the ignition is on, and, on some cars, only work when the engine is running. At other times there is no 12 volt supply - so the lights can't be on.
For the brake lights to be on, the brake light switch needs to be stuck closed (as mech1 suggests) AND the ignition needs to be on. Or there is a short circuit passing 12 volts to the brake light switch even when the ignition is off. Neither of these conditions is likely to be fixed by thumping the brake light cluster.
Or there is a short circuit passing 12 volts directly to the stop lamps. The only things I can think of which are live with the ignition off in the region of the rear light cluster (and therefore fixable by thumping) are the boot light and boot central locking/alarm. This will take some finding.
(You're sure he didn't mean the tail lamps?)
Ian
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Add to last but one paragraph ...
... or an "always on" 12 volt supply to a tow hitch. Which would be a much more likely candidate, if you have a tow hitch!
Ian
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This is a puzzle. Normally, brake lights only work when the ignition is on,
IIRC rovers work direct from fusebox ie ign/off so switch I think fav.may be wrong?
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Couple of points, a lot of modern cars have brake lights that work ignition off as well as on.
Also some jap cars use Earth return switching, not sure about the Rover but I believe based on Honda?
Finally Rovers of this era seem to have brake light problems, previous boss had one and virtually everytime I followed him he had at least 1 brake light out. And neighbour has 25 with the same thing.
Jim
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I'm waiting for ShereKhan to report back whether his Rover's brake lights normally work with the ignition off.
Ian
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I can assure you that the brake lights on Sheres Rover WILL work with the ignition OFF.
This is true of most modern cars.
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We are waiting for ShereKhan to report back.not heard from as yet?.
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Hi,
Sorry for the delay in replying. I've analysed the car with all the advice given. The brake lights do work without the ignition. My father has been keeping watch on the car over the past week and the problem has reoccured. He has identified the root cause of the problem. Steve you are indeed correct. The fault is caused by the brake pedal switch sticking. The switch has just worn out. Which I find a bit odd, as a electronic engineer surely this must have a basic MTBF. The car only has 58k for 98R car its had very little use. So i'm suprised for failure of a basic component. Thanks for the input from all.
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306 2.0 SE Cabriolet
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Despite the low mileage, some parts wear out just because they are getting old. In the case of the brake light switch, I expect some damp and/or dirt has got in and cuased the problem.
The car is middle aged, whatever the mileage.
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I would think you was just unlucky.Like any component.can give up at any time.
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Was mech1
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MTBF point understood, but things DO break on cars, even before they reach 100,000 miles! The MTBF might be 100 years, but of the (say) 100,000 they produced, one might break after a year. Maybe that's your one :-)
Cheers,
Mark
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