Help! Brake lights jammed on

[hagis]

Sorry for not posting in the A4 topic, but I'm after a quick response.

I had a wet drive home tonight and have to drive through a couple of big puddles. I noticed the ESP light was on my dashboard and a couple of minutes ago a neighbour knocked round to point out my brake lights are permenantly.

I'm guessing something has got wet - ABS sensor? Short of disconnecting the battery, is there anything I can do to clear this?

[hagis]

Two more things - my glowplug light came on a couple of times. Brake switch, possibly? All three lights are on at the back and it seems a bit of a coincidence that it's happened after a wet drive home.

To save disconnecting the battery, there must be a fuse I can take out to stop the lights flattening the battery, where's the fuse box on an A4 B6?

[Col]

Two more things - my glowplug light came on a couple of times. Brake switch, possibly? All three lights are on at the back and it seems a bit of a coincidence that it's happened after a wet drive home.

To save disconnecting the battery, there must be a fuse I can take out to stop the lights flattening the battery, where's the fuse box on an A4 B6?

Not so sure on the A4 but VW (assume share same switch) suffer a very common problem of the brake light pedal switch failing.

You will need to remove the cover in the footwell to access the switch.

To get you out of trouble tonight you maybe able to simply 'free' it off by manually pushing the plunger. Failing that, you could carefully take it apart and make sure all is well (clean contacts etc).

The best solution would be to remove the switch tonight and drop by your dealer for a new switch tomorrow morning.

P.S. The switch failing will cause the glowplug light flash which indicated a fault. This happens as being drive by wire, the brake switch is an essential safety system (throttle gets cut regardless of position if brakes applied).

[STEWY L]

i think they may be on the right hand side of dash,accessible with door open,
if i'm wrong, and you can't find them, you could pull the plug on the brake switch wiring
in the pedal area?
stewy.

[kenney]

S14 - Fuse in relay plate fuse holder 10 A - F - Brake light switch. The fuse box is at the side of the dash remove the cover

[hagis]

Thanks for your help gents. I went out before and the lights have gone off. I drove it a bit and came back and they're still off. I asked the missus to stand behind and the lights are working as normal so I'm just putting it down to the water.

I'll keep an eye out for the brake switch, it went wonky last year very briefly when I had to slam on.

[hagis]

Right, I had a go at this today and I couldn't get the brake switch set up.

I put it in, twisted it in place and the depth of the plunger wasn't quite right and the brake lights failed to work.

Having spent a while googling this I've come across people saying there is a ratchet mechanism that is set the first time the plunger is pressed but I'm not sure if this is for this particular brake switch.

Can someone who has done this before tell me where I'm going wrong with the plunger depth please?

[STEWY L]

hagis,
this may help i hope,
http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=1158315
regards,
stewy.

[hagis]

Thanks Stewy, I read that site yesterday, I've a horrible feeling I've knackered the switch. I might have a go at taking it apart tonight and seeing if I can reset the mechanism.

[euroslap]

Nightmare! http://my.opera.com/community/graphics/smilies/doh.gif

[Hex69]

Nightmare! http://my.opera.com/community/graphics/smilies/doh.gif


Nooooooooooooooooooooo............................ ...........4326

[STEWY L]

Thanks Stewy, I read that site yesterday, I've a horrible feeling I've knackered the switch. I might have a go at taking it apart tonight and seeing if I can reset the mechanism.
we have every convidence hagis:approve:
don't even have to wish you good luck:biglaugh:
stewy.

[hagis]

I'm going to have a look on Saturday, I'll let you know how I get on.