legacycentral bbs

So... I go out to my car this morning to go to school, and my brake light on the dash stays on when i turn on the car. I've never had this problem before. I check the e-brake(from the inside) and it seems to be working fine, but the light stays on. I dont think i've set the ebrake in the car for the last 2 weeks because I never park on hills. I need info quick, I dont want to drive the car and F up the diff or anything, and I gotta get to school.

Reset the ECU. See if it goes away.

Fill your brake fluid resevoir, if it goes too low then the light will come on.

As long as the reservoir is full and the brakes still work, it should be fine.

My car has done that occasionally, and it only happened in the mornings.

Since you're at school now, the light should be off when you leave.

One theory is that moisture in the system condenses overnight and triggers the sensor that turns the brake light on.

Now might be a good time to bleed your brakes! I bled mine and it hasn't happened since.

Andrew

What everone else said.

I had this problem when I fiirst got my car, so I did what everyone else did, and the problem went away...

I had this problem too with my old wagon. Even though the reservoir was full, the light would still come on. I flushed all the old fluid out, and the problem went away.

The ECU won't have any effect on that light. Its directly tied to the low fluid switch in the reservoir.

Other note is that sometimes the little float gets stuck. But yeah...if fluid is full, float isn't stuck....suck all the fluid out of MC, put fresh stuff in, and bleed the brakes.

petridish38 wrote:One theory is that moisture in the system condenses overnight and triggers the sensor that turns the brake light on.

I'm positive that's what the problem is. My car does this every morning now, because of how I did my brakes. Since I had just gotten my XT, I figured I'll drive that, and work on the Legacy whenever I felt like it. I let the brake system gravity-drain from the hoses at each caliper for a couple days, with the MC cap off. Not once did it cross my mind that moisture just could possibly collect in an open brake system...

So I'm gonna hafta put new brake fluid in soon before I vapor-lock the whole thing...

Or rust your brake system from the inside out...

You definitely don't want to leave moisture in the brake fluid. The fluid is supposed to be almost gin clear; if it's dark that indicates that it's contaminated.

My car always turns on that light when it's really cold for some reason. I don't have moisture in the system, I have plenty of fluid, and my handbrake is off.

thank you very much! the brake fluid did the trick. I also realized just how much my brakes need to be bled.

Make a DIY vacuum brake bleeder and the job's easy!