Brake Light and Chime (ding-ding-ding)

Ok So My riviera just randomly turns the E-Brake light on and it doesnt go off... Randomly it will just go off but idk why its on? the e brake is not on and the beep from the light is very annoying. Is there anything that this could indicate?

Low brake fluid.

My E-Brake light is ALWAYS on!!! and makes that annoying BEEP BEEP!!!

Does anyone know what is wrong?

low fluid, or an E-brake pedal that doesn't return properly.

Search and be safe. If the car isn't stopping right don't drive it.

i had this very problem try just simple pulling on the e-brake towards you while sitting in the drivers seat. Sometimes with mine in would be like half an inch more to the floor than it should be. so try just simply pulling it towards you while in park. Mine went away when i did this.

Texasfan: the ebrake can be adjusted so you don't have to do that - the adjustment is outlined in the service manual. It can take a while to get it right, and you may wind up deciding to replace the pedal mechanism; they are not that expensive, less than $50.

In general what's happened is some combinaiton of the return spring fatiguing and the front cable stretching.

On mine, the front cable had stretched somewhat, but due to corrosion on the adjuster I just replaced the $!((& thing. Also, my return spring has fatigued - once I got the new cable on it returned more (not all the way) so I did not mess with it further.

Albertj

albertj wrote:

Texasfan: the ebrake can be adjusted so you don't have to do that - the adjustment is outlined in the service manual. It can take a while to get it right, and you may wind up deciding to replace the pedal mechanism; they are not that expensive, less than $50.

In general what's happened is some combinaiton of the return spring fatigueing and the front cable stretching.

On mine, the front cable had stretched somewhat, but due to corrosion on the adjuster I just replaced the $!((& thing. Also, my return spring has fatigued - once I got the new cable on it returned more (not all the say) so I did not mess with it further.

Albertj

Back in May the return spring on my 95 broke, I pushed the parking brake to the floor and it stayed there. I had to use a screw driver to get the parking brake to release. I purchased a new parking brake assembly from GM Parts Direct.

Part: 25658073*
Category: Parking Brake Apply
Unit Price: $30.46

Did you check the light switch with an ohm meter on the parking brake foot pedal assembly?

I cannot stop it from chiming. ive checked my parking brake and my fluid and it seems fine. anybody have any ideas how to stop the noise? it it possible it could be a bad sensor?

DanHnat, search around, read a bit first... This question is answered many times over. What year is your car? Usually it's a bad wheel speed sensor.

I think I understand this better now.



Editorial comment: All of you who are driving around with the BRAKE warning light on for any reason are asking for serious trouble. There are two BIG problems.



1) the light will come on due to minor faults, such as a parking brake pedal return spring that's not pulling the pedal back far enough. This is a problem because once you ascertain this it is easy to ignore. This item (1) becomes a fatal problem when something seriously is wrong (air in system, failure due to slow or sudden fluid loss; fluid spoilage (I will explain furter down in this note), or some other chronic or catastrophic problem - anyway, if you have been ignoring the brake light because of some minor issue and one of the big problems happens, you DON'T GET A DIFFERENT LIGHT or anything. You will simply find that you are suddenly unable to stop the car... and if it has not occurred to you, the most important system on the car is the brakes. You MUST be able to stop that two-tons-o-fun. Period.



2) The other big problem is that the way the brake system is designed, the likelihood of a sudden catastropic failure in a well maintained system is small except in case of tampering. Problem is, not everyone reads the service manual or has enough maintenance experience to know what "well maintained" really means, and the owner's manual basically says 'take it to the dealer' which is sound advice for technical reasons put has a host of practical problems - such as dealers' maintaining staff that actually understand your car versus the current models.

Quick aside about the dealership service departments - My dad had a 1974 Datsun 710 station wagon. I drove it to commute one summer, and while doing that took responsibiltiy for the maintenance. I took it to a Nissan dealer not far from my office because it had a suspension tracking problem. Turned out the control arm needed to be replaced. I walked into the service bay with the service manager, I was picking up the car, it was parked out back, and we were talking - I guess about life and the universe, or whatever. I noticed that the service bays were SPOTLESS. No kidding it could have passed a white glove inspection. I commented that the place did not look like they even had cars in it for control arms, there were not even any oil spots on the floor in the mechanics bays, and asked how they kept it so clean. He says, "Oh, we sublet all of our mechanical work. All we do here is new car prep and minor warranty work..." Hey - suppose that some of the other new car dealers are the same way. It naturally follows then, that some dealers (mechanics or service writers) truly don't have the tacit knowledge needed to keep your car on the road. THIS is the "practical problem" I menioned above. If they can't look it up or it's not in a service bulletin, it isn't necessarily gettign fixed. So you bring your car in, they will do Something, maybe swap out parts or whatever; or maybe the wizard mechanic is not busy the day you come in so he works on your car and fixes it amazingly... Or maybe the divison service rep has seen it before... Overall this means maybe will fix, maybe not...

So now back to the main poit of this comment: Editorial comment: All of you who are driving around with the BRAKE warning light on for any reason are asking for serious trouble. Yeah, right, and what do we do about it?

The first thing to do - either fix the brakes or go have them fixed. Period. If you are in an accident and an investigator finds the brakes had malfunctioned some time ago, your liabilty could include criminal negligence depending on circumstances.



Secondly - If you are interested, learn how to maintain and repair the car. You may be able to enroll in a local community college course; you may be able to work with a parent, sibling or neighbor. You will end up buying the tools as you go along. You will need (in case of the Riv) a factory service manual. Actually a good place to start is to search around on this editboard - there are practical instructions for much of what you'll need to do - read the instructions and imagine if you can do what's called for. Thare also recommendations for tools to buy. It took me some time, at first working wtih my father and then by myself, to learn to repair brakes and other systems.



In closing, I said I would explain brke fluid spoilage. It's really simple. Brake fluid absorbs water. All the time. The more water DOT 3 fluid has absorbed, the darker it gets. If your brake fluid is dark, you should change it. In order to completely change it, you will have to build or buy a power bleeder. A change in which you suck out old fluid from reservoir with turkey baster and refill with new fluid is not bad, in that getting *some* of the wet fluid changed for dry will help. Consider using the Prestone or Vlavoline synthetic fluids, I have found they last longer (don't seem to get wet as fast). If your fluid is the color or maple syrup you should condier changing it. If your fluid is the color of molasses you might/should take it to a shop and have it flushed. In my experience you don't need a Tech II to bleed the system as long as when you use power bleeder you do not go above 10-15 PSI. You still *want* a Tech II to be sure to purge the ABS motor. For that, detailed instructions are in the service manual.



Albertj

good advice, alberti. I agree when the red brake light is on, it means trouble. Last week I had a gaping hole in a front brake hose, very serious problem, and NO brake light for several miles. So if you DO manage to trip the trip the light or dinger, it means trouble.

About fluid: it can last a long time, but after it's been in the car for do many years, just change it. Brake fluid absorbs water like a sponge, which makes the braking process less effective, and can cause other problems. To bleed the brakes easily, purchase a mighty bad pump at the local auto parts counter for $25, and you can vacuum bleed all 4 lines with only removing the wheels. Replace with DOT 4 fluid. Entire process might take a couple hours, no need do press the pedal or anything like that. Just keep the reservoir full. And keep the cap on whenever you can. Remember, moisture lives In the air- don't use old or opened brake fluid!

So all the break on my 98 Riv are fairly new. But whenever I leave from a stopped position my parking brake light on my dash board lights up and makes a dinging sound. As you may know this can be pretty annoying.

Has anyone ever had this problem or know what the issue is??

Check your brake fluid level. Sounds like it's just low enough to cause the light to come on when it sloshes around in the reservoir. The brake fluid level may have gone down some as your new brakes are worn in and just happens to be triggering the light now.

Also I would park the car in a clean area of your driveway and see if there is any spots. You might have a slow leak, or it might just be going down from the brakes wearing in. Better safe than sorry though,

I had a brake line blow on me last month. Had to drive 10 miles using the emergency brake and what was left of the fluid. That dinging can get annoying real quick.

Sounds like low fluid level to me too.

IT also could be that the return spring on the parking brake has become weak and needs to be replaced (I think you can replace just the spring but dealers sell the assembly,it's like $30). Check by raising the pedal with your toe after you release it - if it clicks some more (and you dont get a ding) wha-la you have found the problem.

Albertj

Albert, I bought a New Parking Brake lever assembly some time back when I was replacing every cable and part in the E-Brake system. The spring that is located on the lever assembly is very small and lightweight. It's job is to hold the Pawl that is part of the lever release mechanism.
I found I didn't need to replace that assembly after all because once the new cables were installed with a new adjuster I was able to tension the cables properly and that is what actually makes the lever retract when pressed on, not the little spring on the lever assembly. A lesson learned and money spent for nothing that time.

I would have to agree with checking the fluid level, cleaning the sensor in the reservoir and/ or adjusting the emergency brake cable to its proper tension to eliminate any slop in the cable. Once you tension the cables properly the release mechanism works better and won't sag.

Just checked my break fluid and it does appear to be a little below the line. Hopefully thats the problem. My e brake cable seems to be fairly tight as well. I will report back

A tight ebrake cable is better than a snapped one.

Try and wipe the sensor inside the reservoir if the fluid is a dark and dirty color. If the fluid is clean and the sensor is dirty you can have this problem as well.

Does your E-Brake work smoothly with all cables free to pull and retract.? Need to get under car and manually pull on each cable to ensure they are good and free otherwise you will have an on-going problem, if there is a problem.

I thought mine were working well, when in fact the right rear was seized up, the left rear was very difficult to move (almost seized up) and the intermediate cable was about to break at the point where it connects to the adjuster. That's when I got a good look at all of them and found my adjuster rusted to the point of no return, so I ordered all the cables from the front to the back. Just so I wouldn't have any problems in the near future. Figured while I was under the car, why not do them all, they were all the same age and even though the front one seemed to operate OK, I said the heck with it and replaced everything with GM Parts. I also found that the Raybestos replacement cables from the auto parts store were about the same cost but they were half the diameter of the GM cables, so I ordered all GM stuff from Monsterpartsonline.
Just thought I would offer that info in case you do get into replacing any cables.

Rickw wrote:

Albert, I bought a New Parking Brake lever assembly some time back when I was replacing every cable and part in the E-Brake system. The spring that is located on the lever assembly is very small and lightweight. It's job is to hold the Pawl that is part of the lever release mechanism.
I found I didn't need to replace that assembly after all because once the new cables were installed with a new adjuster I was able to tension the cables properly and that is what actually makes the lever retract when pressed on, not the little spring on the lever assembly. A lesson learned and money spent for nothing that time.

I would have to agree with checking the fluid level, cleaning the sensor in the reservoir and/ or adjusting the emergency brake cable to its proper tension to eliminate any slop in the cable. Once you tension the cables properly the release mechanism works better and won't sag.

OK thanks, I should have thought about the cable.

Albertj

hey im in a rush i only skimmed thru this thread really fast i will search and read more tmrw but uhm...

my e-brake sometimes doesnt wanna go down. my car is parked inside the garage right now, i started the car to check my brake lights (my 3rd brake light is out, btw how do i go about replacing that>) i released the lever, then when i was done the lever wouldnt stay down. it would ding but not lock. it happens every so often.. what causes this? sorry if the answer is prolly in here already in my face, just wanted to put this in here before i get some sleep tonight because its bugging me lol

The 3rd brake light bulbs are above a black plastic cover in the trunk, held on with a couple of clips... You'll need to lie on your back in the trunk to get to them.

LaFlare wrote:

hey im in a rush i only skimmed thru this thread really fast i will search and read more tmrw but uhm...

my e-brake sometimes doesnt wanna go down. my car is parked inside the garage right now, i started the car to check my brake lights (my 3rd brake light is out, btw how do i go about replacing that>) i released the lever, then when i was done the lever wouldnt stay down. it would ding but not lock. it happens every so often.. what causes this? sorry if the answer is prolly in here already in my face, just wanted to put this in here before i get some sleep tonight because its bugging me lol

I found some bad emergency brake cables on mine when that happened. At first I thought it was the mechanism inside the car, but on further inspection from underneath the car it was frozen and binding cables in the rear and in the middle of the car.
If you can't adjust the cables properly you will experience that problem.
Just need to jack up car and pull on each rear wheel cable first. If there is any resistance to movement or a completely frozen cable on one side or the other my suggestion is replace both.
I ended up replacing ALL the cables from front to rear.
Also, I found that the replacement cables at the auto parts store made by Raybestos were much smaller in diameter than the OEM's and they were just as expensive as if I ordered from www.monsterpartsonline.com
So, I ordered all GM cables and glad I did. All works good now and has for the past couple of years. I also, ordered the foot pedal mechanism not knowing if I needed it or not.
Did not end up using it, so if you find you need a new one of those, I'll do you a good deal on a new GM unit.
After you check all your cables, let me know if you need this unit I have.
Rick

sorry if i am late but i had the same issue. the reason why it came and stayed on was b/c there was an air bubble/ build up of brake fluid in the brake line. and all you had to do was use air pressure to get it out.

I'm not reading the entire thread, but when my 96 did this it was a bad e-brake cable too.