Hand brake light stays on when car is OFF

[Stainless]

Well call me crazy, but I decided to put the incandescent bulb back in the brake instrument cluster light to see if the problem disappeared, and it did. When the car is off and the hand brake is not engaged, the incandescent bulb stays completely off. There must be just a tiny bit of draw going to the bulb, but not enough to light up the incandescent bulb, but just enough to make the LED have a dim glow.

Since my DeLorean remains parked Mon thru Friday of every week and I use the battery cutoff switch on days that I'm not driving it, I am not going to worry about it. This may be enough draw to drain the battery after enough time, but since I never give it the chance to do it, I'm letting the car win this one. Unless there is an obvious and easy solution to this, I'll leave the incandescent bulb in there. It looks no different from the LED anyway.

From what I could tell, the previous owner has a wire for the alarm system coming from the handbrake somehow, and this likely has something to do with it. Oh well.

[David T]

If you have an alarm the first thing to do is to properly and carefully dissect it out of the car. Unless you have all of the documentation on it, it is working as it should, it is nicely installed, and can still be supported it is garbage and will mess up whatever it is connected to. On some cars it becomes a VERY involved process to remove, lots of wire, zip ties, tape, connectors, etc. You can wind up with a BIG pile of trash. When they don't work they can cause all kinds of weird problems. Depending on how they are installed they can cause you to be stranded with engine kill or start inhibit. If you MUST have an alarm get a new one and install it properly, Even real fancy ones with a lot of features are not expensive, it is the installation that makes them expensive. The most effective anti-theft device is a battery master switch with a removable key. Unless they know Deloreans they will never find it. Or, if you want to spend the bucks, Lo-Jack.
David Teitelbaum

[jawn101]

Well call me crazy, but I decided to put the incandescent bulb back in the brake instrument cluster light to see if the problem disappeared, and it did. When the car is off and the hand brake is not engaged, the incandescent bulb stays completely off. There must be just a tiny bit of draw going to the bulb, but not enough to light up the incandescent bulb, but just enough to make the LED have a dim glow.

Since my DeLorean remains parked Mon thru Friday of every week and I use the battery cutoff switch on days that I'm not driving it, I am not going to worry about it. This may be enough draw to drain the battery after enough time, but since I never give it the chance to do it, I'm letting the car win this one. Unless there is an obvious and easy solution to this, I'll leave the incandescent bulb in there. It looks no different from the LED anyway.

From what I could tell, the previous owner has a wire for the alarm system coming from the handbrake somehow, and this likely has something to do with it. Oh well.

Definitely still worth tracking down why it does that in my book. That's a miswired circuit or a short somewhere that could prove problematic if not dangerous somewhere down the line.