95 Corolla questions

ok, so im 16, this is my first car, and theres a couple small problems with it, got it cheap, 85,000 miles on it, heres my questions:

Whenever i turn my lights on, my brake light turns on, when i apply the brakes, it gets brighter, a little, any ideas on that would be great. the brake light works fine otherwise.

There its a buzzing/rattling at all times, i can hear it from the door handles and the rearview mirror, but i can feel the rattle throughout the car.

And last, whenever I make sharp turns, or any u-turn, there is a loud squeaking noise

if you can just partially answer one of my questions, that would be great

the brake lights are supposed to turn on when you turn your headlights on and then get brighter when you hit the brakes.

buzzing is probably the engine mounts showing a little wear. it's no big deal, my 93 does the same thing and nothing has gone wrong with it.

how fast are you going when you make these sharp turns? definitely sounds to me like tire squeal which should happen if you're going too fast when you do that.

thanks for the first two, but the sqeak happens if im just going like 5 while making a u-turn

could be lots of things. could be low air in the tires, some suspension parts might need a lil WD-40, could be something else. not sure

As far as suspension goes the struts have rubber above and below the spring and over time this wears and causes a squeak. Replace it if worn or like the racer said WD-40 it.

Outthere Too..

I agree with what was said above--I would bet my right eyebrow that the vibration is coming from the passenger side upper engine mount. The part cost me about 95 bucks and I put it in myself. Virtually all vibrations ceased. The funny thing is that the mount did not look worn out at all--apparently the rubber part was just hardened which caused more vibrations to be transferred from the engine to the rest of the car. Good luck. These are great cars.

As far as brake lights, technically they aren't really supposed to come on when you turn on the headlights. Usually there are two filaments in one bulb, that second filament is actually your brake lights. That's what makes it look like your taillights getting brighter. If one filament breaks it can cross over onto the other causing a short. So, if you hit your brake all your running lights come on, likewise if you turn on your lights, your brake lights come on. Happened to me, replace bulbs, problem solved.