Welp, the subject line sums up things pretty nicely. My wife walks in the house earlier this evening, asking why my daughter's Civic's tail lights are on. I'm thinking that maybe my daughter left the lights in the middle position and didn't turn them all the way off. But once I get out there, I realize it's the brake lights. The third light on the rear deck isn't lit, but that's probably cuz the bulb is burned out. So I take the car for a quick spin around the block, hoping that just driving it might unstick whatever was causing the problem, but no such luck.

Because it was about 10pm when I found out about this, I just disconnected the negative battery cable/ground strap, just so the battery doesn't get run down. Tomorrow I'll also check the top third light to see if it is still functioning or not.

I d/l'd a pdf of my car's service manual, and have determined that the brake light switch is located off the pedal (oh, my aching back!), so I'll be troubleshooting it tomorrow. Frankly, borrowing some odd, baffling and no doubt expensive to fix (labor charges, donchaknow) set of gremlins that have infested the electricals to cause this, beyond a faulty brake light switch being the culprit, I'm stumped. Hopefully that's all it is.

It seems odd to me that the failure mode of this switch would be to fail to 'always on' but maybe it just jammed up or something? Ever heard of this before?

So anyway, if you've got any ideas, I wouldn't mind hearing back from you. I'll be digging into things later this morning (it's close to 2am now), and I'll report back as to what I've found.

 

There is a rubber pad on the pedal arm that presses the switch. It's common for that pad to fall apart and fall out, then the switch doesn't get pressed and the brake lights stay on.

The brake lights always were wired so they work even with the key off.

 

Thanks for the reply. Okay, I get it now. The switch is closed when the pedal is "at rest," then it opens when the pedal is depressed. So if that pad disintegrates, there's nothing pressing against the switch, insuring that it stays closed. Correct?

Anything special about that rubber pad? Just wondering if I might be able to fabricate a replacement and glue it in place or something . . .

 

Sure enough, when I had a look, I found a few pieces of the disintegrated rubber donut looking thing. Close to the consistency of hard wax now. It appears to just shove into place with a bullet-shaped protrusion used to hold it in place.

Called the local Honda dealer. $5.64 for the replacement piece. On my way down there now.

Thanks again.

 

You are being WAY OVERCHARGED for this part. The list (retail) price is $2.27


To anyone with this same issue...

The part in question is #21
46505-SA5-000 PAD, PEDAL STOPPER $2.27 list

http://www.hondapartsnow.com/genuine...5-SA5-000.html