Brake and Trac off lights

Hey all, I have a 2000 venture. For the past few weeks when the ignition is on the brake and trac off lights are illuminated and they stay on the whole time the vehicle is running. I'm assuming it's something with the brakes, just not sure what. Anybody have any experience with this?

I have had this problem on my 2000 Venture as well, twice. The brakes work well but the lights stay on. I've found that topping off the brake fluid tank takes care of the problem. I believe the brake fluid level indicator may believe the tank is low. The tank is hard to access, I use a long necked funnel to reach the tank for filling. This may work for you.

I have not heard off topping off the brake fluid. But if it works, great. If not, you probably have a short or ground issue on one or both rear circuit bds. (tailight assemblies). Make sure that your plug in harness connector hasn't shorted as well, as my 97's did. Both rear brake lights out, only third brake light on, as well as ABS and TCS idiot lights on. Cruise control not working either. You may have some or all of these symptoms, but it is probably the start of them. Pull the wire harness end off the plug to see if the middle contact (black wire of the harness) looks defective in anyway. If it looks a little burnt or its mating plug does, you have the famous short. If you buy new circuit bds (taillight assembly) only to solve your problem, goop weatherproof silicone caulk over the connection on both sides once you prove it works to prevent this shorting out from happening again. Design flaw by GM. Who would ever place any connection in the direct drain path of the rear hatch. The other option you have which costs about $5 is to label the harness wires that plug into the circuit board as to their location on the mating plug, cut the plug off the harness, attach connectors to each wire, cut down all 4 sides of the circuit bd plug about 3/8th to 1/2 in exposing the 5 pins. Be sure to clean off the shorted middle, thin prong/pin carefully. Attach the mating connector from the location markings you did earlier. Test the brakes, notice that your ABS/TCS dash lights are now out, and apply weatherproof silicone to the connections so that water, etc cannot collect at the harness or connections. The McGyver way, but my circuit has worked for over a year incident-free. email me separately at [email protected] (https://webmail.san.rr.com/do/mail/message/mailto?to=cjstew4%40san.rr.com) to discuss more. Thought my ABS or Traction Control was on the fritz, but low and behold, only after looking this up on AF did I discover the problem and fix. If you go the new circuit bd route, the circuit cards I saw on Ebay recently were $27 US each which is a good deal. However, you still need to either replace the wire harness to them or perform the strip and add connector way I describe above. Thanks, Corey

Corey,

It's my brake light not the ABS light, does it matter?

For a simple check for the BRAKE dash light staying on, make sure that your emergency brake is fully released. You may have to reach down and pull up on it to make sure. See if that removes the BRAKE dash light. Still check your rear brake light ensuring that they come on. Low brake fluid could be the cause as well. Let us know what the culprit was.

Well, topping off the brake fluid did the trick. I brought it up to the full line and the lights have not been on since.

Thanks to all for their input.

there is a sensor in the mastercylinder that lets you know when the fluid is low. also if the fluid is low in the mastercylinder then it usually means that either the front pads or the rear shoes are worn down pretty far. and if it is front pads . when backing calipers up if the piston gets hard to push back you might have to take some fluid out of the master cylinder for them to go on back to the caliper seal.i seen a guy blow a hole in his mastercylinder trying to push the caliper piston back. as he had added some fluid between pad replacement.