"BRAKE" indicator light flashes on and off
 

Hello all,

My BRAKE indicator light on the dash is coming on and off intermittently, seems like when I brake, or even when I hit a bump in the road. Comes and goes when it pleases. I amnot noticing anything wrong with brakes at all. My car is an '86 300 SDL with 205,000 miles. Thanks for your time.

Ben Maggos

Reach down and lift up on your e-brake pedal and it will go off. The cable may be loose and your pedal is sort of flopping around, tripping the switch to turn the light on. I've noticed that the sensor is very high up in the pedal reach, so even the slightest "engagement" of the e-brake and the light will turn on.

Or the fluid is slightly low in the brake master cylinder. There are floats under the caps that drop and turn on the light if fluid is low.

Could the pad wear sensors be doing this?

Yes, my brake light would come on whenever I pressed on the brake pedal. Replace your brake pads and front sensors should take care of the problem, it did for me:cool:.

IIRC the SDL has a separate warning for pad wear, like most of the lower-end cars. It is an amber light with the symbol of two concentric circles but check your manual to see. The earlier cars used the same light for both fluid and brake pad wear indication but I thought that since the W123 they all had two lights and if the brake warning (red light) comes on it is usually because of low fluid in the reservoir or a faulty parking brake light switch. Based upon your symptoms I would guess low fluid.

The red light ONLY comes on with low fluid or a misadjusted parking brake. The orange (amber) light comes on for thin front pads. So, stepping on the brake will lower the fluid, hense the red light. Yes the main reason for low fluid is thin pads at either the front or the rear. So top of the fluid then inspect all pads.