Brake lights not working!!

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denalianyone

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I have a 2002 Denali with led taillights and recently the brake lights stopped working including the 3rd brake. My remote start won't shut off when I tap the brake pedal as well. I changed the brake light switch and check the fuses but to no prevail. I'm really stumped at this point. Any help with be greatly appreciated. Thanks fellas!!
 

"350Vortec"

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Sometimes the electrical problems are just simple thing. Remove the taillights and check power going to the bulb sockets and stuff like that. You may find that a wire has grounded or something.

I have had alot of electrical problems and i found that keeping it simple and looking at what doesnt work, usually finds the problem. Dont overthink it.
 
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denalianyone

denalianyone

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I checked the bulb sockets for power and they were all fine. I even put a regular bulb in the socket and the brakes still didn't work. The parking lights and turn signals work fine.
 

JKmotorsports

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The brake lamps and the 3rd light are run off individual circuits. So since neither one of those circuits are activating and the fact that the remote start isn't shutting down with the brake pedal as well, then the problem is either the switch not being adjusted properly or there is no feed going to the brake pedal switch. You should have a 20a fuse that supplies voltage to the brake switch. Once you press the brake pedal and the switch contacts close, voltage flows to the stop lamp circuit which is protected by a 10a fuse and to the 3rd brake circuit, which is protected by its own 10a fuse also. So the only logical problem that can keep both circuits and remote start shutdown from being operational at the same time is voltage supply to the brake switch or mechanical operation of the brake switch itself. The stop lamps are grounded seperately from the 3rd light, so I wouldn't think both gnds went bad at the same time.
What I would do is unplug the brake switch and verify that you have a constant 12v supply on the supply line. If not, the most likely scenario is a bad fuse under the hood or a break in the supply line somewhere. If you do have 12v, then either the switch is bad or the plunger isnt adjusted right.
 

05Yukon

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I'm not sure If the 02 are the same as 03+ but I'm pretty sure they are. You might want to look above your tailpipe there is a box that has 6 connectors in it. All of the brake lights run through there. You may have some dirt in there causing a bad connection or a short. I would pull all the connections out and clean them good. This box can cause some bad electrical problems.
 
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denalianyone

denalianyone

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Thanks JK and 05 Yukon for the great advice. I will tackle this once again and see if I can get them to work like b4.
 
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denalianyone

denalianyone

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Apparently, the fuse to the brake switch was missing. Maybe when I took it back to the installer he took it out and put it in the spare slot by accident. So I moved it down a row and walla. Thanks for the brilliant writeups and ideas guys.
 

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