Fitting A New Brake Light Switch

[pedantic_me]

iirc some vehicles have two switches on the brake pedal? make sure you replace with the same type.

 

All fixed. Not trusting the local auto shop had sold me the correct item, I bought another one today from Ford. The ford one was green, rather than purple as previous, but again didn't work. Fearing it was more than the switch (and finding out local Ford garage would charge me

[mrben]

Great thread. Had same problem. Wiggled the switch first and brake lights started working, so have sprayed a bit of wd40, and they're working again now, so might get away with the switch for a while....

[mrben]

Thanks.

Edited March 14, 2013 by mrben

[pt-auto]

My brake light switch has gone bad. My car has Automatic gearbox and thus I can not get it out of P with this switch broken. Unfortunately I can not get a new switch until Wednesday but I need the car before that. Has anyone tried to fix the broken switch? The length of the switch is correctly adjusted and it looks OK from the outside. I have also tested with a jump wire that the switch is indeed broken as with the wire in place the green park light in the dash goes away. I also checked the switch with a multimeter and there was no way to make a connection and thus to show any resistance between the 2 connectors.

 

I seem to have another slightly different looking 2-pin switch above this broken one. I guess it is for cruise control? How about linking the wires coming to the broken switch to the other one, would that work? Would there be too much current so that it would blow a fuse? I can of course see that, if it happens immediately, but if it happens while driving I just loose the brake lights and the next time I start and try to move from P to D I just can't again. Does anyone know what I should do?

 

The switch is a 2-pin model and the car is a mkII -01 2.3 automatic.