2009 Clubman S - no brake lights and cannot find a fuse or relay for them, either in passenger kick panel or underhood. Any ideas?

 

Brake lights might be paired with another circuit and fuse.

Are you sure the brake light switch is working? I had intermittent brake lights with another car and it was a bad (intermittently bad) brake light switch.

 

Is there an error message for a burnt bulb, even though the bulb is alright? If so, check whether the plastic material holding the bulb has partly melted and moved the bulb away from the contact when solidifying (common issue for the R56, including my own LCI from 2010).

 

That's what I thought as well but went through and physically tested every single fuse...none bad. But I did finally discover that some coding change I made was the culprit. I restored all defaults and brake lights returned.

 

Thanks but no melting since all bulbs are LED...which required some coding changes which I've determined was the source of the problem.

 

Brake light switch might be bad? Is it booth taillights and the third light?

 

Originally I believed it was all 3 since it was someone that had been following me said I had 'no' brake lights'. After exhausting other possible causes, I purchased a new switch and was about to install it when I discovered that the third brake was in fact still working. That meant it wasn't the switch. The next thing I did that led me to coding changes I made was unbolt one of the rear light assemblies and set it inside the back of the car so I could see it in my rear view mirror. That's when I noticed that the bulb was at full intensity with running (parking) lights on, lower intensity with headlights on, and off with everything off. And with everything off, the bulb would not turn on with the brake pedal nor with the headlights on but would turn on with the running lights on. That was what made me consider it to be a coding issue.

When I reset all coding to factory settings, everything worked as it should. My coding changes were for two purposes...to halt testing for bulb out conditions for the purpose of using LED bulbs, and to turn on daytime running light minus headlights. There are multiple choices for that second option and some have to do with inner/outer brake lights which probably relate to BMWs and not Minis but a choice I made there caused the problem. During the initial coding changes, I was focused on achieving my two goals and after each change, would walk around the car for confirmation. That meant I wasn't actuating the brakes, therefore did not detect the brake light issue. This time as I made each code change, I also checked brake light function and now have everything working correctly.