Ok folks..... what is this strange phenom? I get out of the car and I notice the rear brake lights are on?? I have to open the car up, get in and press the brake pedal and release, and the lights go out. did I not use the proper "disembarking" procedure?

anyone have this happen? and if so, what am I doing to activate the brake lights when exiting the car
AM vantage '06
thanks!

 

Looks like you need to adjust the brake switch on the pedal assembly.

 

hmmm . so you are thinking, i might be barely touching the brake pedal upon exit, and it stays on, or the brake pedal doesnt fully come back after setting the parking brake, so it stays on. a quick tap and it releases?

interesting. I could check that, but it almost seems like im doing something with how im exiting the car. I think i remember one time as i pullled up the ebrake, the rear brake lights came on and once they are on, they are staying on until i tap the brakes and release.

so you are confident there is no special circuit that engages the brake lights.

thanks,

 

You need a brake switch..the spring inside binds and causes the brake switch to stay closed circuit..tapping the brake pedal to the side will turn off the lights.....not uncommon, and not to costly, just you need the dealer tool to set the correct free play gap

 

On my Esprit, it's easy to accidentally knock the brake switch with your foot because the pedal box is small and the switch is mounted to the pedal arm directly above the pedal pad. The switch is spring-loaded so that it is normally in the "lights on" position when the switch is open. If the switch gets knocked loose, the brake lights will stay on because the return spring on the brake pedal isn't able to fully close the switch. Pressing the switch down by hand while rotating it a quarter turn fixes the problem. Sounds like the symptoms on the Aston are similar.

 

Great advice guys! Thanks. I got upside down with a light and checked it all out. (not much room to work down there. hate to have to do a master cylinder repair ) anyway, looks like the bake pedal was way too sensitive with the switch, and I saw no adjustment on the switch itself, so I just tried to bend the lever arm that contacts the switch slightly, and it didn't seen like I could as it is very strong. I think the effort did move it a mm or so and that seemed to desensitize the brake switch activation point. now I push the pedal and few mm later, you hear the click. I think problem solved.
I don't think I would have though of it, as it seemed like it was a exit procedure, software issue, the way it was happening (by chance)
I wonder if the dealer tool bends the arm or can rotate the switch to change the activation point.
anyway,
Thanks again. pesky problem solved.

 

I was getting very irritated by this issue because my cruise control stopped working (brake light comes on every time car hits a bump turning it off) and my battery was getting drained from the brake light randomly coming on (sometimes even after I check that it's off when leaving the car). I crawled in yesterday and stuffed a folded strip of packaging tape as a shim between the plunger and the pedal, and now the brake light functions as normal, but it would be nice if there was some kind of actual adjustment on it...

If not, I'll probably go make a better shim and glue it down properly.

 

OK I spent about 30 minutes trying to figure this out.

Twist the sensor clockwise HARD about 90 degrees, it'll pop out. This makes it easy to maneuver some shim onto the metal that the plunger contacts.

I couldn't get anything to stick to the plunger, so I used 6 layers of typical packaging tape to make a thin shim and glued it to the pedal. I put some teflon grease on the plunger and installed it (again, crank it hard, this time counter clockwise). Problem solved, brake light now turns on like a normal car.