Brake lights with a mind of their own.

[crl]

Have a 2000 Discovery II Auto. From time to time the brake lights will come on of their own accord and stay on for up to a few hours. They only seem to come on when the vehicle is parked. Being locked/immobilised or unlocked/not immobilised makes no difference. There is no way to turn them off aside from dissconnecting the battery or pulling the fuse. Any ideas?

[Disco Mike]

Sounds like your brake light switch is about to fail, you might want to look at ordering a new one, they are very easy to replace.
Mike

[superpowerdave]

Same thing happened with mine a few months back ... found the part locally but if you don't some of LRO's sponsors, like DAP, carry it for about $20. Fix-action took less than ten minutes and I'm not mechanically inclined at all so should take the average LRO vet about twelve seconds, and that includes the time to chug a beer.

[crl]

It was the brake light switch. Part cost $40.00 Australian from my local Land Rover dealer. Many thanks.

[troverman]

I've heard while using HDC the brake lights turn themselves on when the system applies the brakes by itself. Pretty cool if true, can anyone verify?

[O.B.]

That's a good question, it makes sense for safety reasons.

The brake light switch is mechanically actuated by the brake pedal; the HDC and ETC are actuated by a pump in the ABS modulator, so they have seperate mechanical sub-systems. The light circuit would have to be closed electrically some how.

[troverman]

While it is true that a simple switch on the brake pedal determines if the brake lights are on or off, all that switch does is complete a negative ground to the BCU, which then provides a power feed to the brake lights. Probably when the HDC system is active, the BCU ´knows´this. When the system applies the brakes itself, it could also complete a negative ground to the BCU, which would then turn on the brakelights for the duration of the ground. This is my speculation on how it would work, if it does.