Hey guys, I'm trying to help my dad out with his 98 caravan, 3.3L

For the last month I kept warning him about his brake lights, sometimes the right one would out, other times the left.
But this week they're both staying off, the 3rd is the only one working.

The hazards, signals, running lights will come on. I'm not sure if any of those use the same filaments as the brake light??


I know the caravan is known to have some grounding issues that can cause this. Does anyone know of any particular switches or relays on a 98 I can check?

Thanks,

Kenny

 

did you check all the bulbs/change with known good ones?

 

I gave all the bulbs a visual inspection. I don't have any more spare bulbs but I test one of them out on a spare UPS battery I have laying around and it worked.

I swapped all of these out about three months ago. One of this turn signals was acting a bit strange. I ended up just tightening a contact on the side of one of the sockets.

 

The brake lamps and the center brake lamps are both the same feed. Check to make sure you have power at the tail lamp. The ground location for both lamps in just inside the left quarter panel trim.

 

sometimes it's nearly impossible to look at the bulb to see if it's good. also don't get mixed up on these vans the turn signal bulb is separate from the brake light bulb. in otherwords make sure the bulbs you visually checke were the brake lights and not the turn signals (I've seen that happen on this board before)

if the turn signals work, the flip flop the bulbs. this would be the easiest step in rational and pragmatic problem solving skills

 

Thanks for all the replies guys I appreciate it. I was waiting for a part in the mail, sorry for the delay in replying.

So I tried flipping around the around the bulb, the signal worked both ways, but no brake lights

I went ahead and swapped the multi switch yesterday, but no change.

Then today I swapped the brake light switch and slapped a new bulb in both lights, but no help there.

I'll go digging around tomorrow for that ground in the morning.

 

get a wiring diagram and a test light. this will make you life a lot easier. also does it have a trailerhitch and wiring? see them mess up back lights a lot.

 

No trailer hitch.
I was actually trying to find a wiring diagram lastnight and the night before with no luck. I'll run another search now.

Thanks again.