np20412

I did a search, in fact i did 10 searches. Nothing. So here it is.

Drove my car about 2 hours (94 SC300 Auto), everything works fine. Parked in the garage. Had to go to the airport around 7, Turned the car on, hit the brakes, tried to shift into D, no luck. Shifter is locked. Turned off the car, tried again. No luck. Stuck my key in the little "Shift over" hole, moved the shifter to D, car works fine, no tranny problems. No brake lights go on or nothing. Is there a fuse tied to the brake lights? Is there a sensor that doesn't allow the car to shift if there are no brake lights on at all? What could cause the brake lights to malfunction completely? All the lights BTW. Ive had the spoiler wired and running for 5 years, not one problem. I dont think there are any wires crossed or anything like that. Any input before i take her to get looked at?

Aristo300

There is a link between the brake lights "illuminating" and the lever leaving park...... no tailight, no driving.

Josh Combs

It could possibly be your brake light switch. You may have to get it towed to the dealership for a better diagnoises.

np20412

Well the car works fine in terms of driving, so it does not need to be towed. I just have to manually override the lever everytime to put it in N then start her up before i can start driving. I'm taking it in early this morning so I'll post up with what they say is wrong.

np20412

There definetely is a link between brake light function and moving the shifter, but i'm sad to say i had to take it to the Lexus dealer to get the wiring re-done on the rear brake light/subwoofer combo. They said there was some miswiring done there when the spoiler was put in place, and since some cheap wires were used, it caused the fuse back there to blow. They took 2 hours to rewire at the rate of a local lexus dealership, thats right, $100.00 an hour.

cal9126

is it making the clicking noise when you put your foot on the brake???

i know that when i had the console removed to fix the replace the radio that when you are in park and you push the brake theres a little switch/lever thing that moves and makes a clicking noise whenever the brake is depressed.

np20412

No, I was not hearing or feeling that click in the shifter. That little click is what releases the shift lever so that you can move it. When you push the brake a certain distance in, you get the click so that you can move out of P.

SinisterSC

the relay between the brake pedal and the shifter override has blown out. It might be the switch itself or the wiring might need to be redone.

technol

if you take off the shifter surround, theres a button under there that if you push it in, it will let you shift it...

nicknace

Except in my case there was no sub wiring. I just never disconnected the center brake light after I installed my aftermarket spoiler a few months ago. I guess the resistance was too high and the fuse blew. The stealership charged me - you guessed it - $200 to diagnose, change out the fuse, and disconnect my spoiler brakelight. And they tried to get me to have a stop light relay for an additional $411 bucks. I passed on the latter option since the problem is fixed...

np20412

That's terrible news. See, my third brake light (Stock) was always disconnected after i got my spoiler put on, but in my case it was the sub. The dealer tried to get me to bite on different relays of different sorts as well upon initial diagnosis. I told them i already checked and that wasn't the problem So i told them to check the wiring, even though i really had no clue. Turns out i was right. I wish now I had just gone to the place where my spoiler was installed to have it re-wired and changed the fuse myself....I find myself saying this $200.00 later

nicknace

Doing a search on the stop light relay last night, I found a lot of fascinating stuff, albeit a little late. Banana GS has, on his DYI site, the little brown box in the trunk, how to disable it, etc. Others have similar stuff. Anyway I didn't find it on a prior search of CL for ABS/VSC, but it's out there. I hope others see this thread and learn from out pain in time. Seems like a common problem, at least on the GS forums.

And while I'm ranting, I want to say that I hate Toyota in this respect: I bought both volumes of the factory shop manual for my model, and it sucks! I read the sections on diagnosing this problem so many times that my head hurts. About all I can tell you is that other tings can cause the same thing - essentially anything that tells the ECU that there may be a problem with the brakes cause it to shut the whole system down and the three lights to go on. Not only that, but the DTCs set with my problem gave absolutely no clue as to the source of the problem - one for the ABS system not working (DUH - I have a dashboard light telling me that!), and another warning of a problem with the master cylinder (as far as I can tell, there is not one). The third DTC I could not even find, since there really is not one table listing all of the DTCs for the car. In this respect, GM has Toyota beat hands down - when there is a problem with a sensor a single DTC is set which says - there is a problem with this sensor, and the shop manual tells you clearly what to do about it.

Sorry for the long post. I'm frustrated.