This is what's happening with my car today.
Press the BRAKE pedal, the parking lights come on! I noticed in helms that the combination switch is related to these events, could it be faulty? Or do I have a grounding issue? or a bad relay? hmmm...
It's rather funny, but odd when all lights dim (stereo, dashboard) and the parking lights start flashing at the same time I brake :)
Any ideas?
Adrian
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Grounding sounds like a good guess, or somebody has jammed the wrong bulb into a socket? Is the car new-to-you, or have you had some work done on it lately?
'Curly'
The prime suspect (other than possibly the combination switch) is the ground on the brake/tail light assemblies. If the ground is bad on one side, voltage will feed from the brake wire through the brake filament, find no ground, then proceed backward through the tail light filament to the parking light bus... causing the very symptoms you described. Removing the dual filament tail/brake light bulbs is the quickest diagnostic - if the problem continues, look elsewhere. If that cures it, replace one at a time until the symptom returns, then fix the ground on that socket. If the symptom doesn't return, one of the sockets is corroded enough to be intermittent.
Putting a single filament bulb in one of the dual sockets will always cause this symptom, but if they haven't been touched look to the grounds.
Mike
I forgot to mention - if there is a bad ground on one of the taillights, turning on the parking lights and pressing the brake will cause the problem light to go out since there will be battery on both sides of it and no ground in the middle.
Mike
Bingo, it was a bulb. Even though it was stil working, the filament holder was corroded.
also, noticed that my positive battery cable was way corroded with sulphuric acid. I cleaned it and put it back. Wonder why. The battery is only a year old and I cleaned all contacts before installing it.
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