Strange Brake Light Behavior

[isuzu4me]

Hello, folks!

Hope you are doing well and might be able to shed some light on this problem....

Last night, a helpful stranger tells me my brake lights are out. I check the next morning, and the brake lights look fine. My wife is driving the car during the day, and some tells her the brake lights are out.

Through trial and error, it seems that when the lights are on, the brake lights would not work, but when the lights were off, they would work. Still doesn't explain my wife's experience earlier today, but couldn't repeat behavior.

I took the driver's side light casings out, checked the light, and it looked fine (as expected as it worked under some circumstances). I then ran the same series of turning the lights on and off, putting the car in gear and out of gear, etc., and IT WORKED. I put it back together, and the driver's side worked, passenger side didn't. Repeated the same process, with the same results on the passenger side.

Now, it appears that the brake lights are all working fine.

My questions are:

- Has anyone else had this happen before? Any learnings there?
- Fuses looked ok. The large 4 prong tail fuse I couldn't really check, though. Could this kind of behavior be caused by a faulty tail light fuse?
- Am I just postponing the inevitable? Should I just get some electrical work done to find the ghost in the machine?
- Any other recommendations of things an amateur like myself can look at?

Really appreciate your time.

Thanks!

[2eyefishclaw]

I have seen afew of them do this what I normaly do is remove the bulbs clean the contact points in the bulb socket and be sure there is no corrosion on the bulbs that usuall takes care of it for me

[dannyd74]

You're not losing your mind. I went through the same problem. I took out the light assembly and it magically started working again. I assumed a loose connection and reseated bulb. It appears to be working, but I'm not convince it'll stay that way.