my friend has a 97 GLE same as mine with 133k on the block. im pretty sure its auto.

his brake lights wont turn off. ever. they stay on all the time.

he said he pulled the fuse that corresponds to them, and that caused them to turn off, but as soon as he puts it back in they go back on.

what is causing this?

is it an easy fix?

his brake light switch by the pedal is probably stuck/bad.

Yep, brake light switch. There is always power going to the brakes, when you push down on the pedal it pushes the switch down to ground it and tah dah, brakes!!!!

so does the switch get stuck down?

or is this a part that is going to have to be replaced?

More than likely the little plastic stopper that the brake light switch rides on broke and fell out. The lights are off when the switch is depressed.

are thosemustang wheels?

Yeah its the rubber stopper stuck on the brake paddle which presses the switch ,so if this piece falls off the switch is always released like as though ur pressing the brake paddle .Just stick double sided tape over the hole in the paddle in layers thick enough to depress the switch when the brakes are released.this works for me .Just make sure its works fine or you will have a dead battery

They are Halibrand Cobra III wheels, very popular with the Shelby Cobra replica guys.

Here's a parked shot..


They started out as track wheels for the my Z but I have bigger and lighter ones now....

please dont show the enkies...lol

I'm a pic *****, it's a sickness...... Think Nobama will send me a check for that?

well ironically enough after starting this thread almost a year ago for a friend of mine, this same thing happened to me last night.

two things to point out here: i hadent driven my car for 2 days AND it was raining very very heavily over the past two days (both of these are unusual)

so after reading the responses here, i went out to my car with a flashlight and looked for the rubber bump stop that is supposedly attached to the brake pedal arm?

i didnt see it.

am i looking in the right place? am i misunderstanding?

i also didnt see the place where the bumpstop is supposed to push.

anyone got a pic?

i still dont see the "little plastic thing" in the switch. hell i cant even find the switch

can someone please help? my car has been dead for a week now.

You just need to get up under there with a flashlight. The switch is mounted to the pedal bracket right in front of the pedal arm, IIRC.

ok i found this thing today. apparently the little black plastic thing that is supposed to sit in there shattered........ i have no idea how that happened considering i didnt use my car for two days before i noticed the brake lights always on...


anyway i got a dime and some tape and made my own thing to hold the switch down (where do i get a new black thing for that hole??). i jumped my car, drove it around 5 miles or so and came home and turned it off.


i then went to work for a few hours and came back ---------- only to find out that my ****ing cars battery had died AGAIN.

i checked to see if my little tape/dime thing was still in place, and it was.

so im walking back toward my house and i hear a clicking noise coming from the trunk area.

its like a constant on/off switch sound, like the sound the mechanism makes when you pop the trunk from the drivers side door.


was leaving my car's brake lights on till the car died damaging so something in the trunk area?

was leaving the car with a dead battery for 9 days damaging to something else?

or are these two things not connected, and just a coincidence?

You can get he little stopper for the brake light switch from the dealer. If you battery was dischaged for days with the brake lights on a 5 mile drive is not going to recharge it. You need a battery charger to recharge the battery. A 10amp charger would need most of the day to recharge it. The clicking noise may be related to low battery voltage.

Thanks to all of you who helped in the thread. I ran into the same issue with a 1996 model. I took a before and after (duct tape with penny in the middle) to those who's trying to get visual.

Hope this help.