tail lights always stay on

[harbus]

I am baffled. For about the last 3 weeks, my dashboard tail light indicator light stayed on all the time ( after I start up the car) So I checked and saw that one of my lights were out. I did not change the bulb.

NOW today, I see , after a short evening drive, when I come back and shut off the car. The headlights turn off as they normally do, after about 15 seconds... BUT all my tail lights stay on ( tail lights, licence plate lights, side rear lights) all stay on. I checked the fuses and all are good.

Oh, an now that all rear lights stay on, that that little dashboard tail light indicator light NOW has turned OFF and the tail light that seemed o be out ,....IS NOW WORKING FINE AGAIN!

But the tail lights always stay on, so that would drain my battery overnight, so I disconnected the battery and hopefully I can get someone to respond and help me on this soon

[TrevC]

Hi Juan...welcome to the forum

It sounds so much like a short circuit to me...however, quite where the fault is is another problem. I would probably start at the fusebox to ensure there is no water ingress or corrosion and work back from there.

Let us know what you find

Cheers   Trevor

[harbus]

Yes,  Just tried that.... no signs of water ingress or corrosion. All fuseboxs look fine.

However, just to add to what I said above, I have determined that the rear lights that stay on are the break (stop) lights. the license plate light turns off normally when i turn off the headlights.

I removed the breaker fuse that corresponded to the break(stop) lights   and the lights turned off. The fuse  looks fine with no signs of being defective. So the problem definitely is that the break lights ALL stay on.

 

ALSO, I see that rearlight problem light on the dash is ON again.... so I checked and saw the rounded light ( next to the licence plate) is OUT while the rest of the break lights stay on  BUT weirdly, when i turn on the front headlamps, that same rounded rear light turns on..

 

So to to recap, the rounding rear light ( next to the license plate) is OUT when the break lights are all on, but that bulb works fine when  the front headlamps are on.  AND the break lights all stay on all the time.   

 

[TrevC]

I would then check the stop light switch which is on the brake pedal...if this is faulty it could hold the lights on.

Disconnect the wires and see if the lights go out, if so then more than likely the switch at fault.

[harbus]

yes thats it :)   It was a missing brake pedal pad bumper.   I did a quick fix by gluing 2 pennys together the gluing them to the brake pedal "stop" area where the switch is supposed to hit in order to turn the lights off..... and it worked :)

 

thanks