No brake lights!

[nuron]

Wow, I don't know when this happened but my left, right, top middle lights stopped working . The bulbs look burned out but even when I replaced all three, they still didn't work. The side bulbs had one filament lit up though, for regular driving, just the braking filaments are not working. I checked the fuse on the driver's kick panel and the 20A fuse was good. I even put in a 15A fuse just to see wha would happen and it was the same. What now guys? I don't wanna be an ass on the roads .

[Skiermang]

Are you sure the brake light switch on the brake pedal is functioning correctly?

[toyomoho]

If not the switch, check the trunk wiring where it jumps from the chassis to the trunk lid for damaged wires.

[nuron]

I would think my brake switch is working because everytime I press it, the Lights indicator comes on in my gauge panel.

[bjorkmae]

When I got my 91 camry it did the same thing your describing except the lights where very dim. My lights light on the dash would come on when I hit the brakes just like you said. When inspecting the bulbs they looked fine but I noticed that the previous owner had spliced into the wiring and added an additional ground to the system by grounding it directly to the trunk. I tightened his extra ground screw and the lights worked perfectly. Now he didn't cut the ground and redo it, instead he added an additional wire to the ground wire for the trunk lid harness and used a screw to connect it to the trunk lid. I never could find anything wrong with the factory wiring so I left the ground he added in place since it works fine now and the lights light on the dash doesn't turn on any more. So you should try grounding the ground wire for the trunk lid harness to the trunk lid directly and see if the fixes it. Make sure you attach to bare clean metal no paint or rust.

[nuron]

When I was hooking up my sub, I had to put a ground underneath the rear speaker deck, could that be it? I'll try to find the harness..

[Mike Gerber]

It's more likely to be a break in the wiring inside the trunk, by the driver's side trunk hinge. Open up that loom of wires and look for broken wires.

Mike

[nuron]

Like you said, there was a frayed wire by the trunk hinge so I wrapped electrical tape around it--crappy pic:


can a problem come from flattened wires? All of them at that bend are flat.

What is this for? There's nothing connected to it...




I didn't get a chance to test my lights again because no one was around so probably tonight I'll see.

Could it also be that little yellow Lamp Failure box tucked inside the trunk that's at fault?

[Mike Gerber]

Some of those flattened wires could be broken inside. If this doesn't fix your problem you may have to open up a couple of them. Look at the tail light sockets themselves and notice the color of the wires there. Now go back to the flattened wires in the loom and peel off the insulation of those colored wires and check for breaks. Repair the breaks as you find them and then wrap them with electrical tape.

I'm not sure what that connector is for. If there is nothing back there to connect it to, then my best guess is that it's wiring for a power antenna that your car probably doesn't have.

Yes it could also be that lamp failure sensor, but that loom of wires breaking is more common.

Mike

[Toyomt]

If you haven't found your problem yet, look at the bulb failure box. (the yellow box in the trunk) I recently lost my tail lights and it turned out to be a burned off wire in this box.
When I disconnected it, the brake lights went out also. Open the box and drop out the mother board and look closely for a burned off wire, some are very small. I replaced mine with a inexpensive junk yard box. I found this info on page 13 about Nov when someone connected up a battery backwords and shorted out his system.