i notice my wifes rx330 when brakes are applied, the passenger lamp doesnt light up as bright as does the drivers side. does the entire assembly need to be replaced? had a local dealer look at it while it was there for an oil change and they claim to be a fault in the wiring and want to charge per hour to properly diangnose it - lol.

also, are valve cover gaskets a pretty common fix for these? the front most one is leaking a bit.

 

I have the same issue but with driver side. Did yours get fixed? If so how?

 

What was done to fix this problem?

 

Brake lights are LED. Probably have some led bulbs out. I heard the whole circuit/led have to be replaced, ie the whole lamp.

 

Dim brake light, drivers side.
Changed driver brake light bulb and is still dim, also the top center led bake light is out, ANY IDEAS?

 

Using a multi-meter, check voltage at the socket by having a helper press the brake pedal. Compare that to the other side and see if there is a difference. I suspect you may have a short.

 

There are multiple LEDs surrounding the standard bulb, and it sounds like some of yours are out in one of your housings. If you have someone step on the brakes and you take a close look through the lens you will be able to confirm this. Replace the housing.

 

It seems to be a common problem with Toyota's LED brake lights. The 4.5 generation (previous gen, post refresh) 4runner also has this problem a lot. So far, I have not found anyone with a fix to it, but I will keep an eye out for everyone with this issue.

 

Here's the fix for dim brake lights.
You can get the whole assembly ($180 Amazon, Sewell $217) OR just the circuit board from Sewell ($68 with CL discount)
There are 12 led's, 6 were burned out causing it to look dim. I suspect the resistors are bad.
New board intalled from Sewell, good as new. Total time about an hour, most difficult was removing the original board!

 

Cartman,

How do I diagnose if I need the whole assembly or just the board? Also, I can find OEM housings for around $100, still tempted just to go this route. In my RX, the top half are out and bottom half are working.

 

Board is very easy to replace, need to remove the housing either way, took a little finagling to get the board out of the assembly. For that little difference in price, get the whole assembly.

 

This is a fix that I’m sure will never happen again. I removed the circuit board and noticed all the LEDs were crimped (poor connection). So, I soldered all the LEDs and other solder joints that were suspicious. Originally this brake light only had 3 dim LEDs working. Now this is much brighter than the other working brake light, I guess I’m doing that one next!

 

I was looking at those lumileds on the board, thought it was odd there's no solder joints but crimped down! Might take the other side apart and solder.

 

Bad crimp job wasn't the case, it is indeed the lumileds that are bad, can't find exact replacements, only piranah style. Might try soldering them in place to see if it'll work.