You'd think it was a pretty open and shut case right? Its on a 04 S with the 5th brake light mod.

Passenger side brake light will not light, the middle light will still turn on.

Replaced the bulbs, nothing happened.

Double checked the bulbs. nothing.

Removed 5th brake light wires. nothing

Switched the Panels that hold the bulbs from right to left. guess what. nothing


Is the passenger side light fused or something? anyone ever seen this?

the culprit:

 

vampire tap cut the passenger side brake wire maybe?

 

vampire tap?

 

I'm assuming the 5th brake light mod used squeeze-on splice connectors to connect the wires? Mine does.... if so, that can break the wire inside the insulation sometimes... no more circuit...

 

i used single strand 14g wire to bridge 1 connector to the other

 

Also, the passenger side door lock will not unlock by the key? possibly related?

 

Ahhhhhh.... I was confused - you're doing the "jumper" between the brake and fog on your pre-facelift taillights...

Possibilities... broken wire... pushed the wire out of the connector inadvertently... or (horrific worst case) Body Control Module failure....

I doubt the door lock is related... though if your BCM is going out, I guess that's possible....

I'd get a circuit tester (little needle thingy you push into the wire to make contact, with a light and a ground wire/clip) and test the brake wire further up the harness with the pedal depressed - is it getting power? Which would mean problem is at or near the connector. If no power, either you have a break further up the harness, or may have a BCM failure.

 

Well, the official name for this is "brake light mod", which involves "bridging" the brake light and unused -but intact- fog light using a piece of wire as Blimey mentioned above...

It has been a good discussion whether this is safe or not, since it adds extra 40W to the BC1 module. Some experienced BC1 failures due to this, and some had it since early 2002 with no problems.

Since you already eliminated the blown bulb option, it "might" be the BC1 module. I hope not, because that is an expensive piece.

Search for "brake light mod" and you'll have number of threads to read...

Good luck!

 

brake light mod - not mode

 

Tested voltage,

Drivers side is at 12v

Passenger side 4v....

 

Ewwwwww..... that's not good. That means you have continuity (no broken wire), but the BC1 isn't sending enough juice... Might be worth disconnecting the battery for a while and reconnecting, to see if that resets anything...

 

Oooppsss... Was typing in a hurry and didn't realize it. Fixed now :D

 

Although I bet a brake light ala mode would be tasty.

 

Blimey, you crack me up!

 

can anyone predict how expensive this may be?

 

If you are referring to the cost of replacing the BC1 add in the cost of having the keys reprogrammed as this is the place where the encryption for the ignition keys is stored.....or the vehicle will not start!

 

I've seen $600 installed quoted in other threads here.