I have had my malibu for about 6 months yesterday while driving a fellow driver informed me my brakelights were not working. That night I pulled apart the brake light housing and the lights were all on but when the brake was pressed they did not get any brighter.The blinker and reverse lights are working. I checked the fuse and it was working fine. Just really confused on what it might be. Any help would be much appreciated. thanks

C. Euler

There's really not much in that circuit.

So - if you're on cruise, does tapping the brake pedal drop it out of cruise?

Check the schematic - about all that's left is the brake light switch, and if it drops it out of cruise, that works. If it doesn't, then follow the schematic and see where it breaks (pun not intentional!) - I bet the switch is disconnected, or that it's actually failed.

http://www.philent.biz/1999_Malibu_Brake_Lights_Schematic.PDF

RwP

I the lights were all on but when the brake was pressed they did not get any brighter.

What you were seeing was the TAIL lights, not the brake lights.
The bulbs back there have two filaments inside, a small one for tail lights and a brighter one for the brakes.

In older models, there was a simple switch touching the brake pedal; when you pushed the pedal, the switch was activated, turning on the second bulb filaments (and the eye level brake light in the back window).

Unless the car has had some damage to a wiring harness due to a wreck or similar......the fix should be quick, simple and fairly cheap at any car repair shop. Most likely the switch is loose in it's mounting or has failed.

[edited] to remove comments about new style brake switches which apparenlty doesn't apply to a '99.

P.S. Gotta mention that for things where you don't have a good understanding of the basic principles behind how something works, it is probably NOT a good idea to go taking things apart. In this case, it was just a waste of time; for other things it could make matters worse.

Good luck.

I believe yours has amber turn signals, which are separate from the tail and brake lights.

As MK says, the red lights have 2 filaments. Since the turn signals don't flash the brake lights like some other types it is simply a matter of a fuse, a switch, and wire to take the voltage to the bulbs.

Check the brake light fuse first. If it's burnt and you replace it and it burns out after using the brake lights again, then you have a short circuit to ground somewhere. (It could also be a short to a high-amperage device, but not likely.)

If the fuse is good then check the condition of the connector at the brake light switch. If it appears darkened from excess heat, or even melted, then you are suffering from either a bad connection that causes excess heat, or the brake circuit between the switch and the bulbs has been damaged and is drawing too much current over long periods of time.

If the connector looks good, then remove it from the switch and test the terminals. One should be nothing (goes to bulbs) and the other should be hot all the time. If that is true, put a jumper wire between the two terminals and gingerly touch the wire to see if it's heating up or not.

If it isn't, go back and look at the lights. If they're on, it's the switch. If not, it's either the wiring between the switch and bulbs, or both of the bulbs are bad (did you test them yet?), or the connector(s) at the housing(s) have been compromised somehow.

Please let us know what you find and/or if you fix it.

BTW, your effort isn't wasted if you're trying to find the source of the issue. It's wasted only if you just willy-nilly take things apart with no hope of fixing it.