I have a 98 E430- and am having the same problem. When I turn on the car, all is fine. Then the moment I press on the brakes, the lights come on, along with the message that I have a defective bulb. The brake lights do not come on when I press the brakes.

My initial guess after reading the posts was that it was the brake light switch. I also had a bad rear light assembly. The parts I replaced to date are:

Stop light switch
All rear bulbs, including third brake light bulb
passenger side rear light assembly.

The brake lights still do not work, the BAS/ASR messages still come on, and I am running out of ideas. Should I just take this in to the dealer, or is there something easy I am missing?

Thanks.

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98 e430, 55K