Can someone explain to me the taillights not allowing the car to start?

I do not know about the car's starting but I KNOW for sure that if a stop light bulb goes out, then you CANNOT put the car into a gear. F-1 is connected to tail lights. I recently learned this.

 

Not sure about the "taillights not allowing the car to start".....maybe that's why they're in the tool kit.

 

??????

 

Carry a few extra bulbs and practice changing them out a few times. It'll become second nature. You'll be fine.

 

Have someone actually verified this, or is it just hearsay? Can someone with an F1 360 try remove a brake light bulb, and see if it will go into gear? It is well known that it requires a working brake light SWITCH to select a gear from standstill, but that does not mean that a broken bulb will disable it... maybe it will, but sure sounds odd...

 

Finally, we know what the "F" in F-1 stands for!

 

Why can't you verify it yourself? Just disconnect the tail light electrical connector. It's not too much of an effort, is it?

 

I think you're referring to the brake pedal switch that will not allow the car to start. Having a tail light out should not effect the drive-ability of the car.

 

It's a fact on the 360, if a brake light or break light switch is broken, the car will not engage into gear. I do not know if it's the same issue on other Ferrari's.

It happened to me. Brake light was out, and I was stuck. I was lucky, I was in my garage at the time.

Stef at Scuding.com has a controller that plugs between the brake light switch that will eliminate the broken brake light problem. Scuding also sells LED light conversion kits. They are not inexpensive but are high quality, purely plug and play, and Stef provides excellent support.

I have no relationships with Stef at Scuding.com. I'm just a very satisfied customer.

 

👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 Well said!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

Broken brake light switch will disable many cars... But, you had a _single_ brake light bulb burned and out (1 of 3), and that prevented you from engaging a gear?

 

Yes. I learned that from a thread not long ago. So I had to try myself at the light, not putting on my foot on the brake (same as brake light burned) which doesn't give electricity going into the F-1 system, I could not put the gear to 1.

 

That is not the same... It is well-known, and a safety feature, that you need to have you foot on the brake on an F1 to select gear from standstill.

 

yeah stepping on the brake before putting it in gear is a safety feature...lots of automatic car has it. but i have never heard of brake light being out disabling the car??? that must be the dumbest "feature" ever if it is true.

 

Which controller is that? I tried looking for it on their website but didn't see it.

 

Well, it's kinda like the lights on the 328.

There is a stalk on the left side of the steering column. You twist it forward for the lights to come on. But they don't.

There's a switch in the center console to turn on the parking / side marker lights. But when you flip the switch, they don't come on.

Unless you flip the switch, and twist the stalk. Then the marker lights come on.

But not the headlights.

You need to dip the stalk, same sort of motion as activating the left turn signal. Then the headlights pop up and come on. Unless you forgot to twist the stalk. You have to do both.

Now. Let's discuss high beams....

In other words, why??? Because Ferrari. Or more accurately I suppose, because Italian.

Now the driving lights / fog lights, that's another story. One switch, on or off. And they work that way. Go figure.


Edit: Oh. And if the switch for the driver's side window goes bad, the passenger side window won't work. Because.... Italian.

 

I did a bit of googling on this because it seemed too ridiculous to be true. I ran across this note by StefVan on another forum discussing replacing the incandescent brake lights with LED's:

"These lights will also require an addition resistor for the F1 cars as the power consumption is too low (add 100 Ohm). Without such resistor, you may have troubles to get into gear or get to neutral."

So there might be something to it. Looks like the TCU wants to see a certain minimum current draw in the brake light circuit to determine if the brake pedal is really on. I don't really understand the logic of that, but that's what it seems to be.

 

I recall that some old British sports cars were wired so that certain bulbs were on the same circuit that provided power to the ignition system. A burnt bulb would mean that the engine could not run.

 

The car will start just fine, with or without working tail lights.

However, if the SWITCH that is connected to the actual brake pedal is faulty, then you cannot select a gear with the F1 box. This is because you need to put your foot on the brakes to select first, and if the switch cannot register that, it wont select the gear.

If the brake pedal switch faults whilst driving, you'll still be able to drive as per normal, until you go to neutral...

So:
tail light bulbs faulty? no problem, the car will still drive
brake pedal switch faulty? no gear can be selected

 

Have you tested this personally by taking out a brake light bulb and had it go into gear?

430 or 360?

 

Yes. 360

 

The brake switch is a simple momentary switch. since it is verified above that they are on different circuit, one can just trace the wire and jump the wire that goes to the F1 circuit if need be.