My lamp burnout indicator keeps lighting up(only when I hit the brake pedal) periodically. It happens when I have the lights turned on or not, indicating a brake light issue. I can stop the car and put it in park, have someone put on the brake and all the lights are OK.
When I turn on the lights all those are OK.

When I turn the car off and back on, the indicator turns off until sometime in the future when it misteriously turns back on.

Any place to start is much appreciated.

Have you replaced any light bulbs (including third brake light) recently? The wrong type may fit, may light, may trigger your problem.

Try to replace both brake lights. Some lights may have different wattage ratings. Any unbalanced load on your brake lights will caused the burnt light indicator to lit. The third brake light is indipendent to the brake lights. It will only sense a presence or no presence of load when the brake is pressed.

Yes, I replaced both Brake lights(Sylvania) and the rear lights. Same problem persists. I have not replaced the rear window brake light.

Does your third brake light comes on also when you pressed on the brake? If it comes on them you may have a loose contacts on your light buld sockets. Remove the bulbs and clean the inside socket. Lift the center terminal of the socket to provide tension when you insert the light bulb.

Make sure the steel plate that is the back of the light cluster is firmly seated. It sometines pulls away a little and that triggers the indicator lamp. If that is the problem,a dab of epoxy keeps it in place. Worked for me.

I'll try both those things and let you know the results.

I had a similar problem before. The "warning light" came on every now and then. It happened after my friend (who drives a Volvo) close the trunk lid far too hard .... Actually, I can feel the car go up and down when he closed my trunk.

Anyway, there were no problem with the light blub in my case. It took me a while to find out the connector was loose...

Michael Tse

the license plate lights!! Probably one of them is burned out.

In my case the wire got pinched in the truck lift mechanism, so one light was out. Check that also. Nuff said!

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Regards . . . . JimF
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'94 S500 Cpe

Visit my Mercedes Web Page

Well, finally one of the lights didn't light up when the indicator light on the dash lite up. Guess which one. The back window brake light. When I removed it(hotter than hell by the way), the bulb had "fused" with the adapter. Anyway, 27 bucks later I had a new bulb and adapter and for at least the last couple of days the indicator dash light has not gone on.