Brake light fault:-possible cure?

**pilgrim** · 27th March 2011, 10:19

Hello there, I have a 1.8 petrol Design spec and recently experienced the dreaded "Brake light out " fault showing on the screen. It told me that the left hand brake light was out. I checked the bulbs and found nothing wrong the bulb was fine and functioning normally. Over the following 3-4 days the fault showed again about once a day, again nothing wrong. Eventually I got fed up with it and out of desperation switched the top bulb with the one below.All was well for a couple of days and then the fault re-appeared only this time with the right hand brake light. I left it for a couple of days and sure enough the fault kept appearing for the right hand brake light. I did the same again and swapped the bulbs. That was over 2 weeks ago and no fault has appeared since then and brake lights are working perfectly(so far). I'm obviously hoping it's a permanent cure. No idea if it will work on every Vectra but it may be worth a try for anybody with the same problem.

**mparks8590** · 27th March 2011, 10:37

the bulbs appear ok but are on the way to a slow death.

the reason the error shows is it senses voltage changes caused by the bulbs deterioration

i've often found that once one bulb "goes" others soon follow, so i've taken to replacing 4 tail/ brake bulbs as a single operation to save messing about identifying which bulb is faulty.

**Big Sig** · 27th March 2011, 15:02

You could just clean the contacts too.

**pilgrim** · 9th June 2011, 09:18

Ref my original message re brake light bulb warning and my attempt at a cure which at the time worked. Just an update to say it's still working, I've had no more warnings since switching the bulbs and that was 3 months ago so it seems to have worked, all bulbs still ok.

**tony-1977** · 9th June 2011, 09:20

Originally Posted by pilgrim

Ref my original message re brake light bulb warning and my attempt at a cure which at the time worked. Just an update to say it's still working, I've had no more warnings since switching the bulbs and that was 3 months ago so it seems to have worked, all bulbs still ok.

Probably was a dirty connection somewhere. Cured by removing and replacing the bulbs