Hi all

Its my first time posting on this forum so let me start with an introduction.

I live in Johannesburg, South Africa and I bought my first Aston, a '06 V8 Vantage 36k km's on the clock about 5 months ago. I am blown away by the quality of the things, its such a well screwed together piece of kit obviously the fact that its gorgeous and goes like stink go without saying.

Having said all of that I do need your help on a very minor issue.

I noticed this morning that my hand brake light doesn't come on when i pull the hand brake up, normally i wouldn't be too bothered about it but seeing as it has the fly off hand brake and all it does come in handy from time to time.

I know the physical light is working as it comes on and goes out before starting the car.

Does anyone have any ideas? Could it be a sensor issue and if so if it relatively easy to get to for inspection(is it under the hand brake leather boot)?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Cheers

Mark

 

If the light comes on then I would guess it's an issue with the sensor or the cable adjustment. The sensor appears to be with the handbrake assembly. There are some threads over at PistonHeads about it so search over there. Here's one I found:

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=1431750

 

Here is what's in the service manual...hopefully you can see all this...Looks like from the nomenclature there is a "switch" in or near the handle assembly.

 

Thanks for the responses guys.

I did a bit of digging last night and i've discovered what i believe to be the problem.

As you both pointed out there appears to be a micro switch on the handbrake assembly. It seems like my switch has come apart as it appears to just be a square black plastic hole with a spring in its center and a wire connected to it.

The switch sits on the outside of the assemply in your pic and is secured by the 2 screws i've circled in red in the attached pic.

I wonder if its an aston only part or if its generic. I'll try strip it out this weekend to find a part number.

Thanks for all the help!

 

I guess it is this part:

 

Yip that’s the part. I stripped it out last night, I’ve attached a pic of what it looks like now. The top of mine seems to have broken off and I can’t find the pieces anywhere in the car.

I called Aston yesterday and they say it can take up to 20 working days to get it here! So I did some searching on the net and discovered Land Rover uses the same part so I’m hoping one of our local dealers will have stock.

 

Ford might use it as well, not 100% sure