Car Brake Lights Stuck On
Last night my wife informed me that her brake lights were stuck on. It had been a rainy day, so my biggest fear was that there was some sort of electrical short God-knows-where inside the car. This could be expensive. After some back-and-forth of tapping the brakes, turning on the car, turning the lights on and off with no result I finally changed clothes and squirmed under the dash to see what was up. Here’s what I found, in case it might be helpful to others.
The brake pedal is connected to at least one button for turning the brake lights on and off. As the pedal is released, the button is depressed. As the pedal is pressed, the button is released. When the button is depressed, the lights go off. When the button is released, the lights go on.
In the case of my wife’s 1996 Ford Escort, there is a small, blue rubber pad on the ‘contact plate’ that the brake light button presses against. The reason I was looking under the dashboard in the first place is because my wife asked if maybe the blue rubber filings and rubber pad that she recently found on the driver-side floorboard might have something to do with her brake light problem. She was right after all.
Since the pad had fallen off of the contact plate the button was not getting depressed far enough to turn off the lights when the brake pedal was released. The solution is to replace the little blue pad. I was not able to find out what this thing was called or even if you could buy one without replacing the entire brake light switch.
The rubber pad worked like a ladies ear ring. It had a little nub on the back that fit into a hole in the contact plate. Probably due to age, this nub broke off and created a big headache for me. In order to avoid visiting the Ford dealer I simply reconnected the nub with some super glue and, after a lot of sweating upside down under the steering wheel, snapped the blue pad back in place. It’s been a few days. So far the super glue is still holding the rubber pad together. My wife’s brake lights are back in action.
UPDATE
Well, the repaired rubber pad didn’t last long: 2 days. Now it’s broken into several pieces.
But I came up with a better solution. This time I rebuilt the pad using a foam-based wine bottle cork, a circle cut-out in heavy coated paper (a better surface for the button to press against) and the original pad’s little stem. All assembled with super glue. Let’s see how long this one lasts.
I just wanted to say thank you all for the helpful info so i also could fix the same problem, it was just a paid to think something so small could cause a big problem. Also i just came from the Ford dealership and got a updated part number-E7GZ-7583-A (BUMPER). This was a black one for 3.80 but it took longer to get it then to put it in.Once again thank you all for the info.
This is crazy…I have the same car. the same exact thing happened to me and I found the blue rubber piece on my floor board. This is very helpful thank you for blogging it!
I do not know anything about cars except to fill up on gas when it says it’s empty. This same problem happened to my ’02 escort zx2. I found this site was able to find the blue pieces everyone talked about, glued them and fixed the brake light issue. I already called the Mazda dealer and got the part ordered this morning. Thank you all so much for the detailed description and the part numbers to the new piece. It was a life saver! If I can fix this issue in 30 seconds with absolutely no car knowledge at all, anyone can. And it’s all because of everyone’s helpful hints on here! Thanks again!
Thanks so much. I found the extra blue piece to the right and was able to put it in without any trouble. I was worried I would have to take it in! Thank you so much for the help and drawings. Saved me a ton of time and effort.
I talked my roommate through fixing his “stuck brake lights” on his 1997 Mercury Tracer using this website! Just wanted to let you know you solved yet another problem!
OK, great information. Found the part at my local Ford dealership. Three bucks. Brought it home, ready to fix it. My issue is that on the 1998 Ford ZX2 I can’t get the break assembly far enough forward by depressing the break pedal to fit the rubber stopper into the hole. So close but so far away. Any suggestions?
@Joe Sorry, I’m not sure how to get around that limitation. Can you get somebody to depress the pedal with their foot while you are under the dash? I know the break pedal can be hard to depress while you are awkwardly squished under the dash.
Thank you SO much for the tip! The exact same thing just happened to my 1997 Mercury Tracer (the Ford Escort’s twin), and happening upon this post saved the day (and probably quite a bit of money)! It would never have occurred to me that the odd, blue scrap of “trash” I found on the floor of my car was the key. I’ve already passed along this tip to the other Escort owners I know.
Thank you!
I was in a rush to get this problem fixed the other day so i took it to my mechanic before i googled it…he charged me $25 and 3 days later it happened again. i decided to google the problem and found out that he just used the spare bumper which was also brittle. gotta love mechanics for charging $25 for that
next time i’ll google my problem first
That’s too bad, but considering that they probably bill at least $60/hour for labor, they didn’t do you too bad. It probably took them 20 minutes to figure out the problem. A really good mechanic that wanted your loyalty would have billed you $25 and then explained what they did. You would have learned something, appreciated their honesty and been more likely to bring your bigger problems back to them to fix.
But most importantly you figured out how to fix the problem yourself!
Awesome post. This is what the Internet is all about! Also, Gorilla Glue did me very well here. For the first couple weeks of it being broken, I was stuck crawling under there and ripping the wire out every time I was done driving in order to keep the battery from dying haha.
Thanks!!
I hope I see this sooner. Just got my Toyota serviced for this reason, the tiny rubber costs me USD 1.50 but the labour charge is 10 times more expensive than the rubber!
My husband was scolding me not getting enough info from the foreman how to prevent this problem, then – ah huh! This is the answer, heartbreak though knowing we could have same the money by DIY ourselves.
I found this very helpful, however I do have a new problem I hope someone can help me fix. I have a 1998 Honda accord..black rubber brake light switch fell apart. I used super glue to put the pieces back together. Then I glued it to the position it belongs, on the plunger for the light switch. I waited 24 hours for it to dry. The next day I started the car, stepped on the brake to drive away but would not shift int drive. The rubber stopper fell off again and now the metal plunger is glued INSIDE the switch. How do I get it out? As of now the cat “thinks” the brake pedal is not engaged.
Great info. I tried to find out if the pad was part of the replacement brake switch or not and Ford tech support wanted $19.00 just to answer my question online. What a rip, $19.00 info for a 3 dollar part. Many Thanks to you!
So, this finally happened too my 2002 Escort! Obviously, an easy fix when you know what causes the symptom.
I actually was able to use the spare rubber stopper in this case. So far it’s still holding together.
Had this issue on my fiancés 99. There wasn’t much left of her stems to the rubber pads. So I ended up trying a different route. I used license plate screw covers. Just (2) 8-32 screws, (2) washers, (2) locking nuts, and (2) of the two piece license plate screw cover caps. We’ll see how well this works. I’ll repost if I have any issues with this method.