my car works perfectly except for one weird issue: When my headlights are on, my 3rd brake light stays on when the brake pedal is not depressed and weirder than that is that the car won’t turn off if 1) I have the headlights on AND 2) I have the brake depresses. If both of these occur, I can remove the key from the ignition and the car stays running until I 1) turn off the lights OR 2) take my foot off the brake. If my lights aren’t on, all systems(lights, ignition) function normally. I’m stumped on this one and couldn’t find a similar issue in the search; any thoughts from the experts??

thanks in advance,
max

 

What have you done to the car lately?

 

i would change the headlight switch/fuse panel, they are discontinued but many available from junkyards

 

Be sure the tail light bulbs are installed correctly, and working as should be.


​​​​​​Remove the tail light bulbs and see if problem persists.

 

+1 on this.
There hsve been problems with wrong bulbs, bulbs put in backwards etc. The contacts on the bulb short the circuits In the socket somehow and power goes down the wrong wire. Something like that anyway.

 

thanks for the wisdom- I actually was playing around with the taillight bulbs before all this started. I think the parts store gave me the wrong bulbs, so I’ll start with a fresh set first and see if that helps. Thanks!!

 

The bayonet fitting on some bulbs are offset the wrong way for our sockets so they end up 180 degrees out of sync.

 

All,

Been using another car mostly lately, but finally got around to addressing this and can confirm for those having a similar issue: replacement lightbulbs for tail lights fixed the issue!

thanks to all as always for the help!

max