What's with the stupid brake light switch..

[rcy]

..the original one in my car was replaced under some recall or warranty (by the previous owner at the stealership). That one lasted me just over one year (just out of the one year parts warranty actually). It was replaced around May last year. That one started acting up a few weeks ago (couldn't shift out of park or neutral without fiddling around with the pedal etc.) so I bought a new switch in a pre-emptive strike and kept it in the car(and of course I couldn't find my receipt for the one year warranty - thankfully the damn things are only about $15 CDN).

Sure enough, last night everything failed - no brake lights etc., and to make it worse, I was in an automatic carwash stuck in neutral - luckily there was no one behind me. Drove home without brake lights freezing my arm off in the cold to use hand signals to brake. Got the new switch in and all is OK - thinking I might keep a spare in the car at all times.

What's the problem with these switches - I see they're made by Delphi, who I thought were a decent parts company. Shouldn't the NHTSA order some sort of recall and force them to make a switch that works?

[bugasm99]

yeah, there terrible. Good thing they aren't that expensive and its an easy fix.

[FineExampl]

That was the first thing to go on my Bug. It was just a defective part. Nothing huge.

[rcy]

Not huge, unless you're driving down the road/highway with no brake lights...

[TeddyTiger]

I just spent $130 at VW to diagnose a non-existant problem with my brake switch. I tried to get it replaced under warrenty but they told me that it had already been replaced via the recall. It stopped working on me after doing some heavy driving / braking and it got me stuck on the highway during some road construction, I couldn't get it out of neutral. Anyway, the guys at VW couldn't duplicate the problem and then told me that it was the shift solenoid that needed to be replaced, a $600 job. :P

I said screw that and bought a new brake light switch, need to get under there and replace it at some point.

[manoverboard987]

it sounds like they kept replacing it with defective switches. that dealership probably still has a bad batch.

i'd order one that is known to be good from somewhere else, then install it myself. (i dunno how to install it, but i know that many have and they say it's pretty easy.)

personally, i never had a problem with my first one and was surprised when the recall letter came. the one that's in there now is still kickin too.