3rd brake light - United Bimmer Community

**Dudesky** · 08-17-2005, 05:17 PM

Does anyone know if the OBC is supposed to detect when the 3rd brake light bulb is out? I was fixing the gasket seal around it today, and decided to pull the bulb just to look. Lo and behold the bulb was shot, who knows how long I'd been driving w/o it

**Rooz** · 08-17-2005, 06:13 PM

It should... I used to get the annoying warning until I changed the sensor, you'll probably have to change the sensor on yours...

**Dudesky** · 08-17-2005, 09:03 PM

You mean my sensor is probably bad because it's not reading the dead bulb? Where would this culprit sensor be?

**Rooz** · 08-17-2005, 09:07 PM

right next to steering column, that sensor is known to go bad... common E36 problem

witeshark · 08-17-2005, 09:09 PM

My center brake light is detected. When the brake test didn't go off on braking, I saw mine was out. I hate that. I stopped and put a backing light bulb in it so it worked again

**komodo** · 08-18-2005, 01:44 AM

Yeah, I don't have that OBD check control computer anymore.....

**Dudesky** · 08-18-2005, 07:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rooz

right next to steering column, that sensor is known to go bad... common E36 problem

Thanks, I guess I'll hunt it down sometime soon. If you can be more specific that would also help. But for now, everything works, except of course it won't tell me if that light goes out again. What I don't get is that the OBC tells me when my main brake lights fail, but not the 3rd light? Are they seperate circuits??