Date: Sat, 23 Sep 2006 09:27:53 -0400 From: "James Rosenkranz" <fireglownospamsouth.net> Subject: Saab 900 classic brake light switch
My son has a '89 Saab 900. Early this year I replaced the brake light switch. The faulty switch was sometimes sticking ON causing the battery to run down when parked. The replacement was a new switch from eeuroparts.com. Now months later, my son reported that the brake light was permanently on while parked and he had to pull the 15A fuse to extinguish the brake lights. While trouble shooting this, I found the brake light switch to be quite warm to the touch while in the rest position. I checked it with an ohm meter and found 0 ohms when closed, and 100 ohms when supposedly open. With the switch removed from the circuit, I found I could correctly activate the brake lights with a jumper. An ammeter shows the brake circuit drew 7-8 amps when activated. This seemed reasonable since the circuit is fused for 15. So it appears that this relatively new brake light switch is faulty and is acting as a resistor rather than a switch. So I'm inclined to replace it with another new one. But I have this nagging feeling that perhaps there may be something wrong that caused the failure of the switch. So am I overly concerned? Should I just replace the switch with another new one and not worry about it? Or is there some other possibility that I need to consider? Thanks, jim
