Emergency Brake Light won't go out?

My e brake light on my 2004 taco quad cab stays lit when im driving. I thought that it was only doing this in the cold weather but im still having this issue. Does anyone know how resolve this matter?

 

Brake lever or your brake fluid may be low in the brake reservoir. With that said, if your brake fluid is low that means your brakes need to be serviced too.

 

Actually a little above the full line would be best, at least on my old rig.

 

Check brake fluid and if that fixes it check the front pads. May be getting time for new ones but not always.

 

Welcome to TW, Grab yourself a hard hat in the lobby. Just some suggestions I stole from other sites. It may help and it may not.

There is a TSB on the emergency brake pedal... The bolt comes loose, and so does the arm assembly.. That may result in the button sensor showing a brake warning light on the instrument panel. When you make a turn, it moves over..

Put it in park, get out of truck with the parking brake released.. Grab the pedal arm (above pedal) and see if it will move from left to right (driver <--> passenger) direction... Should be NO side movement at all.. IF so, tighten it, or go in to get it tightened and that might be tripping your light to...



about: 2004 Toyota Tacoma
Emergency Brake
My emergency brake light comes on and stays on when its cold out, then when the truck warms up it turns off.


This is extremely common on all Toyota trucks. The easiest way to take care of this is go buy a can of PB Blaster at your local auto parts store, lay on the ground under your truck and find the parking brake pivot. If you don't know where it is (should be drivers side about where the cab and bed meet next to the frame rail) have a friend pull the level and release it while you see what's moving. Lube the crap out of the pivot arm adjuster while you or someone else pulls it and releases it. This works 95% of the time. If not, you'll probably need to adjust the shoes in the back but like I said, should be fixed with that $3 can of PB. This is a 5 minute fix at most.


http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/technical-chat/9322-emergency-brake-light.html


One more thing....From what I've read there is a float/bobber in the Master Cylinder that detects fluid level. Even if the fluid is at the correct service level,(visual) that float could still be sticking and not reading correctly. I assume you could pull the cover and GENTLY pull that float up to see if there is any movement upwards.

If all else fails.....

 

your parking brake cable might be stretched... that's what was wrong with mine

 

thanks for all the suggestions and im sure one of them will work its been agonizing for me on my taco.

 

I flushed the brake fluid in my non ABS 2001 Tacoma, but forgot, and left ignition on to listen to the radio. Pads and shoes are fine, just old fluid.

When I drained the master cylinder, the light was triggered because the level went down too low. To turn off the light, unplug the sensor on the driver side lower part of the master with the key off.

Turn the ignition on (don't have to start it) then back off.

Next time you turn it on, the light will come on for self test, and then go out when it senses the fluid at proper level.

 

Wow. Good info. Thanks!

 

I love Google. First hit when I typed in "emergency brake 2004 tacoma engine oil" So my '04's E-brake light would NOT turn off. I topped off the brake resi last night and it went away, obviously came on when the E-brake was applied.

 

Topping off the brake fluid fixed it for me. Thanks!

 

This is why I love this site, I've been staring at this light for a month. Went to take apart the switch, didn't fix it so searched for the reason. Bloody simple

 

I'm new to the forum as of today but the advice on this thread sealed it. I installed a new e-brake cable on my 99' Tacoquad. After finishing the install the Brake light was still on. That's when I found this thread. Several suggestions I saw helped. Saw that the fluid was at the minimum level and filled it. That didn't do it so the next thing was to try what jkarov suggested. Took two tries but then success! The light though kind flickered or came on randomly. I found that the brake handle wasn't going all the way down to the switch. Crawled under the truck and lubed the pivot arm that TicTacOma talks about with WD-40 and no more sticking. The light is off!

 

So my e brake light came on as well; possibly when fluid level was low after bleeding, but not sure.

- I removed the switch behind the brake handle - it indeed functioned correctly and was engaged by the e brake handle. No change to the light.
- I topped off the fluid to max. No change.
- I tried the trick quoted above. No change.
- Finally, I tapped on all sides of the master cylinder with a hammer. Not to hard, but not gentle either, bot the metal cylinder itself and plastic reservoir. The light went off. I interpret this to mean it was the float that was stuck on the bottom.

 

Good advise, worked for me

 

THE FIX IS: grease/oil/WD-40 the "cam assembly" under the truck (under driver's side) that connects the cable that runs up under the dash and to the main cable running to the rear brakes. This (what I call a) cam assembly is a pivoting junction that has a big spring on it. After using a lot of WD-40 (for now) and cycling the assembly, the cable running into the dash finally allowed for the pin connected to the rod on the emergency brake handle to finally seat fully on the switch which activates the light in the dash. After time this "cam assembly" gets coated and caked with dirt, oil and who-know-what-else. It gets sticky and doesn't want to react as designed unless cleaned and lubed.

I fought this for years - not looking into the real problem but putting hardware on the pin that mates with the switch to build up its girth, electrical taping the switch down -- until the tape wore out, but finally tracked it down to this. Hopefully this IS the problem and the FIX. Hope others find this helpful!!

 

This problem has been bothering me for the past several years as well and it finally caught up with me on my last state inspection where I failed due to the brake light being on. I tried everything (including a jerry rigged bungie cord to pull the e-brake handle back) and the only thing that worked was spraying that cam assembly with copious amounts of WD-40 and woking the mechanism. Thank you for that tip as it seems to have finally fixed my problem.