Citroen XM Forum

To be honest I'm not even sure if it's the same as the manual under the wider foot pedal
as I'm never in the car now my father uses the W plate 2.1 VSX auto! Not the biggest auto
fan in the world either so don't have any past dabblings with them too! Any comments and
advice on why all the brakes including the central brake light don't work will be welcome.
I've seen separate brake light bulbs fail in the past but am told they've been checked out
as OK too...

Andrew

Ah..

Theres the Clue Andrew!

Late cars were fitted with a high level brake light, BUT the brake pedal switch was not upgraded for the higher current draw with the addition of the high light...

So fitting another brake pedal switch from an ordinary car will do you no more longer justice, as it will again burn out! You'll possibly have to goto the stealers and get the upgraded stronger switch or repair/fix the exsiting one with better contacts..

Open them open, they are not that heavilly engineered so you cant get in...

Paul

citroenxm wrote:
So fitting another brake pedal switch from an ordinary car will do you no more longer justice, as it will again burn out! You'll possibly have to goto the stealers and get the upgraded stronger switch or repair/fix the exsiting one with better contacts..

Another option would be to install a relay or transistor to trigger the lights while keeping the pedal current low.

Well I don't know what I was thinking going on about manual Xm brake pedals possibly being the
same as auto one! Of course it's totally different and devoid of any rubber switch like the auto.
Mind, this is posted before I remind myself what exactly IS fitted on an auto pedal tomorrow...

Shows what distortion there is to mind now after a fortnight's use of driving my CX GTi Turbo2 !

With you saying early autos are different to later one's Paul it looks like the usual PITA from Citroen
- why make things easy after all. So no chance of a spare brake switch off a late auto then - surely
there's one somewhere being broken with a crocked autobox!?

Hi all,the citroen service site only lists one P/N for all RHD,BVA cars with CC to fit series 1 and series 2,but that of course doesn't mean it didn't have a design upgrade.I have 2 brand new in original packaging RHD,MAN with CC switches in the garage,no use to me for many a long year.
robertm

Exactly! They ARE all the same - the point I made was they burn out with the additional High level becuase Citroen never upgraded the switch..

Of course, the other way round is to put another ordinary switch in and discinnect the high level!

Paul

I know of some people who have done a modification and wired in a relay.

I finally got really fed up with having to clean the brake light switch contacts that get pitted and excessive heat deforming the springy contacts making the cruise control inoperable. I fitted a relay in the foot well. The relay is to operate the brake lights only. The cruise circuit is left alone. Works like a charm!

Had the same problem, which put the CC out of action.
A really crude design of switch, with very basic brass contacts.
Brake lights total an 84W load - excluding any high-level light - so that's a 7A load, with plenty of scope for arcing.
Relay is a good idea. Either that or LED brake lights, but let's not go there.

Either that or LED brake lights, but let's not go there.

Not go there? I can be brief. I played around with LED, but could not get the dual intensity bulb to function. Meaning, the stop lamp part worked, but not the tail lamp. Gave up on that option - for now