peugeot 407 brakelight fault?

celica1994

I keep getting a "rear brakelight defective" warning on the screen of my 04 Peugeot 407 yet the bulb isn't blown, anyone have any similar experience like this and how to fix it?

biko

Possibly the licence plate lights? Or corrosion causing a short. Take all bulbs out and inspect sockets.

celica1994

cheers might give that a go, the bulbs seem fine but the odd time its also coming up direction indicator lights faulty?

biko

If more than one light is going on/off it's probably an issue with the instrument cluster itself rather than the lights. Maybe a loose wire.
By all means check the bulbs anyway just in case.

celica1994

im wondering if its a bad earth wire or something

Hal1

Swap in a known good bulb holder and test. My guess is moisture or a bit of corrosion on the terminal.

celica1994

Hal1 wrote: »

Swap in a known good bulb holder and test. My guess is moisture or a bit of corrosion on the terminal.

cool will check it tomorrow, gonna try the wd40 trick and clean the terminals, double check the earth wire,

dieselbug

Try a seperate earth on the lamp, common problem.

Shakti

any other warnings lit up eg. 'esp'?
maybe a faulty brake-light switch.

noinc

Have you checked your brake fluid level, I had a similar problem and it was a slight leak causing the problem.

mannyfusco

I had a problem like that before and i brought it to a garage and they plugged in some sort of computer and it was a loose cable

WetDaddy

Is it just that warning you're getting? Or are you getting other similar warnings, like "rear side light defective", etc.?

There's a known issue with the earlier 407s whereby the earth wire in the rear instrument cluster is too thin, and burns out. It starts throwing all sorts of false positive errors like the one you've described. There's a link floating around that describes how to swap out the existing earth wire with a thicker wire to get rid of the false alerts. It's not too difficult and well worth it after the alerts become too annoying. It's totally reversible too if you ever wanted to revert to "garage default" and sell the car on. IMHO, I'd tout that as a improvement made to the car though!

It could also just be a blown bulb, so check that first. But before you go *replacing* rear bulbs, confirm that you need to. Getting that cluster in and out is a pain in the ass. If the problem I described above IS your problem, then you'll only have to do it once (and then each time a rear bulb goes after that, which I've found to be very infrequent on the 407!).

Hints are: The alers you describe, followed by additional, similar alerts; followed by increasing frequency of alerts (e.g. EVERY time you start the engine or the EVERY "first time you press the brake pedal" after you start the engine, etc.).

There's a link around on how to do it and it's fairly straight-forward. I'll see if I can find it for you (if someone else doesn't beat me to it... Row? )

Row

Yup WetDaddy your on the ball..:)
Here is the link but you may need to sign up to 407owners.com to view it.
http://www.407owners.com/guides/rearlightbulbs.pdf

Fatthy.Rahim

Hello there,
This is caused by the harness in the boot, on the side , there is also a hidden fuse box back there, the earth might be loose or the wires are wet, you will need to check the boot for dampness then take off the side walls inspect the wiring harness. your problem is in the harness as intermittent faults are fake alarms of on off connections. once the canbus detects a no return signal it raises the alarm. and the fact that these are not consistent takes me to the wiring harness. a bit tricky but for sure it's the harness, give it a try there , you will need a whole Sunday afternoon for this though.