Hi all,
I hope you’re all enjoying your
Porsche
’s. I need some suggestions with a little problem I am currently having with my 987
Cayman S
left tailgate brake light.
I have replaced the bulb and checked that it works.You can see it stays on, but when you press the brake pedal the right tailgate lights up, but the left doesn’t. I have taken out the fuse, given it a clean and I am still having the same problem. What am I doing wrong?!
It might be worthwhile knowing that the previos brake light bulb came up with a warning saying it needed checking, but the message also went away. Now that I have replaced the bulb the message is always on. Thoughts?
I would check to ensure the connector is showing power to the left brake light when the pedal is pressed. That ensures all the wiring up to that point is working properly.
Next
, I would check the ground side on that same connector, to make sure you have a good ground for the bulb as well. You'll need a volt-meter/ohm-meter to test these.
I'm guessing one or both are not working... then you can fix that.
I’m not too sure how I’m going to do that tbh. I also thought of an idea to
plug
in a
OBDII reader
tomorrow to clear the message to see if it resets. I’m not too confident about my idea, but I’ll give it a go.
I have had odd brake and taillight behavior in the past when replacing a bulb, my issue was different from yours in that I still got the error message that the replacement bulb was not working when it was actually working, now I replace them in pairs which solved my problem
Yes, be very careful in selecting the replacement bulbs. Especially the style that have two
points
of contact on the base. They usually have small pins on the outside of the base which may be offset, and need to be oriented properly in order for them to function. Also, I always have a can of aerosol contact cleaner on hand, because I have experienced a new, tested and working bulb which doesn’t light when installed. But removing it and spraying some contact cleaner sometimes does the trick. Be sure to spray some into the socket end of the taillight assembly, and check to make sure that the contacts in the base of the socket are not pushed down too far from years of use, and that they make good contact with all parts of the bulb. Good luck.
they are odd to get in and out of the slots because of the staggered sides. I did think about buying some contact spray.Who would’ve thought that a simple light bulb change would be such a pain in the arse 🤣
**Update it looks like the bulb that was sold to me from a local car shop was incorrect. The bulb I needed was supposed to be 566 P21/4w. The brand I used was called Ring PRO sold by Halfords in the UK. It’s all working now. I hope these posts help others in the future 💪🏻
Just as I suspected. Having all those problems with a simple bulb replacement definitely made me think it was the wrong bulb. Glad you got it sorted out.
I had a somewhat hard time sourcing the bulbs. At a local shop, the book used to look up specs misled me. Here's what works for me (2008
987.1
Cayman S
).
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003ANDGVE/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
These are the same bulbs used for tail lights, brake lights, and the rear fog light.
