Ok. I have a strange issue and not sure if I should post this here or in the General Maintenance section. I've noticed that a couple times that I take a corner a little fast (not breaking traction on my tires but probably pretty damn close) that my brake light will come on. I don't touch the emergency brake nor does the traction light come on (and we know how touchy that can be).

This has never happened before I did my suspension project. I rebuilt the front end with new bushings, outer and inner tie rods. I installed Koni STR.Ts and Strano Springs on the front and rear. Everything else works fine. Car drives fine. When I get to a stop light and am waiting for the green, I put on the emergency brake and then release it and the light goes out. Not a big issue but it does have me kind of curious.

 

This could be the right place.

That brake light is dual-purpose. It tells you when the parking brake is on or when there is a problem with the regular (not ABS) braking system. When you are going through these maneuvers, are you touching the brakes? If its a brake system issue, that would be big.


It could also be a dirty parking brake switch. I'd take the center console off, clean the switch at the end of the parking brake lever and see if it takes care of the problem. (When they get dirty, the switch shorts out and the light goes on.) If not, you may be loosing brake pressure or causing some other fault that would cause the light to come on from the regular brakes.

 

Doesn't the light also illuminate when the brake fluid is low? Could explain why it only lights up on corners when the fluid pushes to one side of the reservoir.

 

^ Good point.

 

Thanks everyone and good calls. I'll take a look at these things after I am done working on the wife's car.

 

My sister had a 2000 Impala (same era GM car), the "BRAKE" light would obviously illuminate when the parking brake was on, but it also went off when a line rotted and was slowly loosing fluid.

 

+1 to checking the fluid reservoir. I just spent a pretty good amount of time trying to diagnose mine, so I'm pretty familiar with the circuit. Since you have an M6 car, it isn't connected to the PNP switch, so the big ones would be the park brake and the fluid. You can disable the light from coming on due to ABS issues (just to diagnose - don't use this as a solution) by pulling the Brake Malfunction Light Indicator Driver. It's a small black box behind the radio (ish). You can open one end of it and just pull the circuit board out - there's no connector.

(NOTE: this diagram is for a 98, but I imagine it's similar for 99-02)

 

hell yeah fixed my problem right up!

I didnt know why all of a sudden my brake light came on after releasing the E brake. I was light WTF! and kept slammin the E brake thinking the switch was stuck!..
then i read your post and sure enough the res was low.

I did a line lock a few months ago and found out also it was leaking causing the low fluid light.

thanks!!