Hello!

I wondered if someone might be able to help me. I have a 2000 S2000 and today when driving in town someone behind me honked and said I have no brake lights. I drive weekdays 60 miles a day on I-5, so I'm pretty sure someone would have noticed this before and it just happened. Drove the car right to the Honda dealership and the guy immediately popped the (L) brake light bulb out, looked at it, said it looked ok, then said it looked bad, replaced it with a new one -- still no brake lights. He opened the truck, checked the fuse and said the fuse looked ok...but then later said (they're all interconnected so he wasn't sure). He implied it could take a lot to figure out what's wrong. They were too busy to help me so I was had no choice other than to drive the car back home and I have an appt with them Monday AM. Does anyone have any ideas why both would go out at once? My engineer friends say it could be the brake switch. Is this a big (expensive) deal to fix on a S2000? Another engineer friend said it's possible a wire was severed? Thanks for any advice anyone might have

 

the switch is not likely to become defective. REPLACE the bulb and the fuses to make sure, if that checks out I would still check wiring/relay before going to replace the actual brake-light switch. I remember on my old prelude the problem with the brake-light was related to a ricer-illuminating shiftknob that I had. I'm not saying you have one too, but if you installed any electronics recently that may be the underlying cause of your brake-light failure.

 

where are you located? I work at a shop in lake forest..called corner 3 garage. We specialize in Honda/nissan/toyota..Ill be honest with you..with the economy these days, you never know what the stealerships may try to do, we are honest people and we try to give our customers the least money spending way to fix their cars. give us a call on monday..if you are local that is..949-380-0801. ask for nima, tell him you talked to jason on the forums.

 

If they both don't work then best place to start is at the fuse, and then the brake switch. A bulb is not going to prevent them both from working. A sort in the wire would blow the fuse. The brake switch can get stuck, and is very easy to test. It's located on the brake peddle assy. It's a one wire plug connected to the switch. To test it just unplug the switch and run a lead/wire from the plug to ground and see if the tails come on. If they do then you've found your problem.

 

It sounds like the tech you saw may not know what the hell he is doing lol. I'd check the fuse for yourself and see if it looks alright. It's probably worth replacing anyway just to be safe- it's pretty cheap.