Emergency help pls: brake light fuse

Sounds like the brake light switch is bad.

 

Should be in the fuse panels behind the passenger and driver seats. Refer to the owners manual for the exact fuse location. I have a 430 and the fuse # might be different

 

Is there really a connection between the brake light switch and the f1 functionality?

 

F1 computer uses the signal from the brake light switch to determine brake pedal status which has to be depressed to go from N to 1st.

 

Wonder why the fuse blew?

 

Ok, thanks for the explanation. It's no wonder Ferrari has reliability issues in Formula One.

 

This... fuses don't just blow by themselves..

 

My brake fuse blew before because the brake switch is telling me it's going bye-bye pretty soon. After I got stuck in the middle of the road like the OP due to the brake fuse, I then got stuck again in the middle of the road two months later because the brake switch went bye-bye. Thank me later for this tidbit. Not cool not cool at all F1 quirks.

Folks taking videos and for sure posting "another dead Ferrari in the middle of the road" in their social media feeds. It was embarrassing to say the least. If only I get some royalties if they become viral.

 

OE brake light assembly is not very good. The contacts of the bulbs sometimes barely makes contact with the bulb socket.
I have my old 360 OE tail light bulb assembly and my F430 bulb assembly removed, sitting in my garage, replaced with LED tail lights from Stef.

I've seen OE bulb sockets that are corroded making intermittent connection and at 21Watts for each bulb that creates a hot spot / hot connection and can blow the fuse.

As other members have said, if the root cause is not determined its bound to happen again.

And yes, no brake lights or brake light fuse burned out will prevent engagement of F1.

I highly recommend LED tail light bulb set from Stef. Very well made, super bright LED's, excellent customer support and most likely will never fail.
I have upgraded my tail lights to LED's. And actually all my lights to LED's except head lights. That will be next.

 

This just happened to me. No brake light, error code and obviously no shifting. Sure enough the fuse blew. Now I agree fuses just don’t blow by themselves so I’m curious. However, a google search on this matter resulted in few issues in quite a few different people. Do fuse age? They blow because of old age? Or what could be the problem. I’d like to solve the problem if there is one.

 

If the fuses blew because of old age.. why didn't all the other fuses blow in the car at the same time? All are oxidizing at the same rate right?

The rub is there is *something* in the wiring that is creating resistance that is backing up the electricity in the line.. causing the electrical contact in that fuse to overheat and melt.
This is the rub. Finding what that component is. It *could* be the brake switch (I'd replace it personally).
When you look at the wiring diagram there are two connectors for the brake switch a 3 connector 172887 and a 4 connector 183686. Both have a line that goes to the rear right panel of fuses and relays. Looks like 6G to 11G. 11G goes to to 1L in the engine compartment which is the Left ECU. I dont' have time to go through the wiring diagram to find exactly the pathway... but this is what you need to do to find any potential shorts that might cause it to overheat. I'd replace the easy things like the brake switch first.

Now.. I'm not your mechanic. It's not my car and nobody is paying me to fix a Ferrari and I don't want to get paid to fix 360's. So you can download the wiring diagram and follow it out or bring it to a mechanic who can diagnose it perfectly.

 

Per post 11 it was a sign of the brake switch sensor on its way out.

 

Was the fuse (plastic) melted or was just the fuse metal part just blown?

There are two things which causes fuses to fail:

1) Very high current in the circuit due to wires shorting to earth or by lamp shorts.
2) Long term medium-high currents going through the fuse which cause the fuse plastic and fuse holder plastic to slowly melt which may lead to the structural breakdown of the fuse assembly (and loss of continuity). Normally these issues are only seen in fan and fuel pump circuits.

Brake switches causing this issue doesn't make sense to me. Brake switches are designed to be short circuits for the high current brake light circuits, at least for short periods, i.e. during brake application, so it's unlikely the brake fuse (plastic) would melt as a result of brake application. Or do you drive around with your foot on the brake all the time? Or is the switch permanently shorted /activated and your brake lights on all the time and you didn't notice? Is your switch properly adjusted? Open circuit brake switch failures are not going to cause a fuse to blow.

For additional info: The newer type brake switches have two circuits. These switches also have a low current pathway which does not feed the high power brake lights and is a short whenever the brake is not pushed. This circuit should not cause the fuse to melt or blow unless you have a short in your RH Motronic ECU.

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