Bright Brake Lights

[Blamecanada999]

Both my left tail light and my right stop light burnt out within the span of last week. I replaced them with the bulbs indicated in the manual. Now all three brake lights (back window is third) stay on whether I'm pressing the pedal or not. They get brighter when I do press the pedal, but it still poses a problem. Any ideas?

[maxnix]

Check your brake pedal switch for operation?

You did use OEM bulbs, ro Sylvania LL, right?

[Blamecanada999]

Yes, OEM bulbs. This has never been a problem until today when I changed the bulbs. I'm pretty dumbfounded at this point.

[q45omg]

hmm it sounds like you put single filament bulbs in or somthing, but you said oem so that couldnt be the case. strange

[Q451990]

I would remove each bulb one by one to try to isolate the problem.

Heath

[maxnix]

And check each socket and the wiring of each socket. Could be shorted.

[Skibane]

I can't imagine any problem with the bulbs or sockets that would allow power to be applied to them all the time. Until the brake pedal is pushed, there isn't any power in the area - No matter what you did, the bulbs wouldn't stay on all the time.

Sounds like you now have a poor connection somewhere in the brake light circuit, which becomes a better connection whenever the contacts on the brake light switch close.

[superuber]

If you put the bulbs in backwards they can do that.(yes, you can put them in backwards!)

[paranoidjack]

If you put the bulbs in backwards they can do that.(yes, you can put them in backwards!)

^ he's right.

[Skibane]

If you put the bulbs in backwards they can do that.(yes, you can put them in backwards!)

So you're telling me that there is 12 volts applied to the bulb sockets all the time, and the only thing that keeps them from lighting is "bulb polarity"?

[paranoidjack]

All that I can say is that in my Prelude, I replaced the bulb "incorrectly" once, and it threw off all of the lighting.

[Blamecanada999]

Wait, backwards?! So the package came with a "right" and "left" bulb? I did not know that. I just figured they included two because they figured if one light burnt out, the other was soon to follow. I'll have to check it in the morning. Thanks.

[Skibane]

"Backwards" means inserting the bulb with its contacts rotated 180 degrees from the way they should be. This would apply power to the brake light filament when the running/parking lamp filament should be powered instead, and vice-versa. The base of the bulb is "polarized" so that wrong-way insertion is supposed to be impossible, but it doesn't always work perfectly...

There are no separate "left" and "right" side bulbs - they both use the same bulb part number, and can be used interchangeably on either side.