Brake light bypass ...Critical for F1 owners

If you read the thread you will know that a bulb failure does not affect anything.

 

It's possible that the behaviour is dependent on the year of manufacture. It's best to experiment and make your own determination.

 

Well, it lightens your wallet by $100 if nothing else.

That's possible, but really it's hard to believe that even Ferrari would design a system where a simple blown bulb disables your car. I guess the only way to be sure is to insert a blown bulb and see what happens.

 

Yea, that was me. Talk about maddening. I was at a car show and for reasons unknown, the brake light fuse blew as I parked the car. I go to leave 5 hours later....no 1st, 2nd, r as I sat there trying to leave.

Equally fun was the group that pushed me down the road and out of the way of the clearing car show. Amazingly, once rolling, I could shift into all gears....but if I stopped, I was done until I was pushed again I managed to drive 40 minutes home without fully stopping the car.

Only in a Ferrari.

 

Presumably at the time you didn't realise it was a blown fuse?

 

Correct. I had no idea what was causing the lack of gear selection at stop. But hey, if you can get a push you can go!

 

Skipp
that might be the case on a 360 or 430.But not on a 355f1, you can unplug both brake lights and your system will still work..try it.

 

whell i just unplugged both sides on mine and my system still works.Maybe some more F1 owners can do the same and report.I dont want to have to make a video..lol
Remember i'm only talking about brake lights...because someone posted that if you have a burnt brake light bulb your F1 system wont work.

 

I am talking about the plugs not just the bulbs.Your F1 system will still work my car is a 98 also.I think you may not of had your rear lid closed when you unplugged your plugs thats why your system didn;t work.My point is that a burnt blub will not stop your 355F1 system from working .

 

Stef's comment: "What “Mello” posted isn’t a great solution because a simple 6 Ohm/5 Watt power resistor will heat like hell, and put the car at risk of fire..."

What a crock of sh*t. It's installed on my 360 for almost three years with more than 7,000 miles of driving. Worse case scenario is the resistor will burn out in a puff of smoke. Your car won't catch on fire. Spreading F.U.D. (fear, uncertainty, doubt) will ALWAYS bring in the $$$.

So Stef, what's in your black box that is so high tech and prevent the car from catching on fire?
Let me guess... Is it a 6 ohms 5 watt resistor encapsulated in liquid nitrogen?

 

Not to get into a arguement but Steff is very knowledgable and if his product does prevent the brake light switch malfunction from stranding a car it would be worth it. Only Steff could answer that and i would be interested in the answer. He is also very helpful so insulting him will only hurt this community and is probably why he never posts on here anymore.

 

"if his product does prevent the brake light switch malfunction from stranding a car it would be worth it."

What???
I don't think you understand what his product can or cannot do. When you have a bad brake light switch, you're stuck. Period. Playing with the brake light bulbs will not get you out of the situation.

BTW, my $1.50 power resistor solution is working just fine, thank you.
He just might get more respect from the community if he stops spreading F.U.D. as if every one else is less intelligent than him.

 

The problem I have is that the very clear impression was given that a blown bulb will strand you in your F1 car. Which is bull****.

How many people frantically went out and wasted $100 because they thought that was the situation??

Bottom line:

1) A blown bulb means nothing more in a 355F1 than it does in a manual car.

2) if you carry a spare $2 fuse it will save you in 99% of other situations.

3) if you are unlucky enough to suffer the 0.0000001% other failure then you'll be happy you wasted... I mean spent $100 (plus the installation cost if you can't do it yourself) on this.

I'm sure the OP just wanted to post something that could be helpful to fellow owners. So no criticism is directed to him at all.
Let's just make sure we fully understand the situation before we tell people to spend money.

 

+1
What i used to do was have a spare brake light switch in my car it's only like $22.00 from ferrari and it's the same as many Fiat's,and only take's 5 min to change.
P/s my brake switch did fail.

 

What???
I don't think you understand what his product can or cannot do.



Maybe you can explain it. In detail please.

 

You said in an earlier post: "if his product does prevent the brake light switch malfunction from stranding a car it would be worth it. Only Steff could answer that and i would be interested in the answer."

I couldn't agree with you more.
I'm bailing out on this thread because it is turning into an argument by proxy. But if you're interested in what I've done on my 360 that's similar, see posting #10 in this thread: http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/360-430-sponsored-yellow-compass-group/449854-transmission-light.html

 

Ok i thought maybe you knew the details of how it worked. Like michael i think i will just get a spare switch for 30 bucks.

Thanks anyway.