GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

could you help me with my problem. I have a viper security sytem installed by a guy i use to knowa few years ago...all of a sudden something is all messed up. whenever my headlights are on my break lights are on. i can tell because my third break light is always on when the headlights are on. now when i press the break pedal the lights get a little brighter, but when its dusk outside and my headlights are on you can't tell the difference in the brake lights so it looks like i'm driving around with my breaks on the whole time. Now i'm not sure if this has something to do with the wiring from my security system because as far as i know this just started happening in the past few months...anybody out there have any idea? also whenever i touch my breaks during the day when the headlights are not on the orange side lights come on when i press the break pedal and the headlight light inside the car goes on...any ideas anyone...the install guy said it's not something he did and the dealer said it's like $75 an hour charge to me if it turns out to be because of the install which is what they will blame it on anyways?

Well if it is caused by the install, then you or the install friend is responsible for the repairs. Sounds like a ground issue to me but I'm not much of a wire guy. I leave that to the pros and I'm sure the dealership your taking it to will be able to find it and get it fixed.

copied from the other threadI don't know if such a thing is even possible or applicable to this car, but I seem to remember hearing once of a similar problem where one of the filaments in a dual filament bulb broke and shorted between the two inputs. Looking in http://forums.genvibe.com/zerothread?id=6871 the brake lights are dual filament types, so for a cheap possible fix, check out the brake light bulbs, or remove them one at a time to see if the problem goes away.

i tried check the brake lights but no good. ANY BODY ELSE HAVE ANY IDEAS??

It sounds like your tail lights and brake lights are shorted together somewhere, but it's hard to know where. Also not knowing how your alarm system is wired in, can't say that is related to the problem or not, unless you think the problem started when the alarm system was installed.

i had the alarm installed about 2 years ago and just started noticing the problem a few months ago and i think its a big enough thing that if it was happening before i would have noticed...so yes i do believe that it just started recently with no new changes being done