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This is an update to help people searching the board for a similar issue. Of course the first thing you should do is to inspect all bulbs to make sure you don't actually just have a bulb out.
My research revealed differing opinions about how to fix this problem, although the success rate wasn't necessarily noted by many people. I found people recommending to replace the brake pedal switch, and most common, replace the center brake light assembly due to LED failure. While you may ultimately have to do any or all of these things, this is what worked for me (I did not have any bulb or LED failures):
I was getting the SID message about once a week for the last 3 weeks, was having intermittent brake light malfunction while the message was displayed, and was also having odd parking light issues at the same time. I have been driving with only 1 functioning reverse light due to a broken wire in the trunk wiring harness (sedan) for over a month. On Monday I removed and spliced in new wire for all 10 wires in the trunk harness. Now, all of my lights are functioning properly. The broken wire was for the single reverse light that wasn't working, I didn't trace out what the damaged wires went to. I have not had a SID message in the last 5 days since I did my splicing, and I have not done anything else to my car.
Unfortunately, I will be replacing the center brake assembly because the plastic clips broke upon disassembly (supposedly they are metal now). If you have split/broken wires on the trunk wiring harness, fix that first so you don't unnecessarily damage your center brake light assembly by taking it apart when you may not need to. This will save you around $80.
Ultimately I will also be replacing the trunk wiring harness because I broke the plastic 90-degree fitting that snaps into the trunk lid. Despite what you may read on some DIY instructions, twisting it to remove it will break it. I believe if you were to insert a small flat-blade screwdriver on each long edge near the corner with the short/straight edge (not the short/curved edge) you can push in on the small retention clips and it will just pop out. This is difficult to properly explain, but is pretty obvious if you can get your hands on one and look at it first. I will experiment when I get a replacement harness here and see if I can post some pics. Removing the plastic elbow without breaking it will save you the big $$ it takes to buy a new harness. I doubt the elbow is replaceable by itself, and you would have to resplice the wires you just spliced in order to fit the elbow on. If the elbow breaks closing the trunk is a lot more troublesome because the elbow will pop out and jam in the corner.
Use a lot of wire for splicing, I used 18awg, but the factory is mostly 20awg, with a couple 18 and 22awg thrown in. I added 1 foot, but 2 feet would've made it easier to reinstall. Stagger the splice points or you won't be able to jam everything into the plastic tube. I didn't stagger the end inside the trunk lid and it was a pain getting everything through the plastic elbow because I only used 1 foot of wire for each splice, so use 2 feet and stagger both ends to make it easier- you may have some excess wire inside the trunk lid, but you can just coil that up. I was fortunate that I only had 1 wire completely broken. Matching the broken wires would be very difficult if multiple wires were broken of the same color. I labelled everything throughout the entire process to avoid crossing wires.
Make sure you have sufficient heat shrink tubing on hand. I bought a package of about 8 pieces, but in hindsight I should have bought a long roll. I had to cut each piece in order to have enough to do all the splice points, and that barely gave me enough to cover the entire splice, even though I kept the stripped wire to a minimum. Also, I bought 1/4" diameter and it didn't quite shrink down enough on the smaller factory wires. Next time I have to do this I will try 1/8" diameter and hope it will fit over the wire splice "bulge".
posted by 72.228.56...
, Mon, 15 Oct 2012 15:25:53
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