tortoiseracing

I recently went through the wiring at the hatch hinge on the right (passenger) side of the car. I repaired broken wires for the antenna amplifier and the center high mount stop light (CHMSL). My remote works again, but my brake light still doesn't work.

I checked the wiring, and it appears that my ground wire (brown wire) is not connected. I used a multimeter to check the continuity to ground, and there was none.

Could this be a blown fuse? Which fuse controls this brake light?

Does anybody know where these wires go to? I want to try and check continuity as far as I can, but I don't know where the wires terminate.

Thanks!

tortoiseracing

I just got the Bentley manual for the car so I can hopefully figure this issue out. Unfortunately, the manual says very little about the center brake light. It doesn't even diagram out where the ground connection is for the center brake light.

I thought the ground might be the same location as the diversity module, since the wires are routed through the same bundle. We'll see if that's true or not.

While looking through the manual, I did find this picture, showing the antenna noise suppression filter. I'm not sure why "center brake light" is listed in parenthesis next to the filter, but could it be possible that the brake light ground goes through this filter? And, if that's the case, does this need to be replaced in order for my brake light to work?

Does anybody know where the filter is located? I did not see anything that looks like that behind my speakers.

RustyItalian

The high level brakelight does go through that filter. If you take out the RH rear speaker you can see it just outboard of the speaker location above the headlining. You need to remove some trim to lower the rear corner of the roof lining to get it out.

My high level brake light is also not working. I had burnt out a track on the circuit board in that filter, easily soldered up. I've determined I've got a short in the RH glass hinge wiring as (after the repair) the light was flickering when I opened the glass. My repair to the circuit board burnt out soon after.

I've also lost FM reception, maybe that was also due to the burnt out track in that filter?

RustyItalian

Well I fixed my wiring today so my 3rd brake light is now working. Radio (FM & AM) also.

Pic of the inside of the filter module is attached showing the initial break. I repaired this last week and it blew soon after. Turns out I had around 5 wires with broken insulation in the RH glass hatch hinge. Things were shorting out. Interestingly a track on the other side of the board blew.

Now I'm down to the only faults been the three lights on the RH side of the hatch.

tortoiseracing

RustyItalian, it sounds like we had the same problem. I ended up replacing that suppression filter as well. There are three wires that go through the filter, and the third brake light ground did not have connectivity through the filter.

I got impatient with the fix and purchased one for about $40 USD from my local dealership (PN 65206953191). It would have been $20 online. Plugged the new filter in and the center brake light worked just fine.

Most likely, when the brake light wires broke, they shorted and overloaded the circuitry in the suppression filter, blowing the circuit.