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I recently fixed a problem where the cruise control and brake lights stopped working at the same time in my 2006 GMC Canyon. The question is not how to fix this, but how it broke to begin with.

I removed the switches at the brake pedal and found that the switch for the brake lights (according to the wiring schematic in the Haynes book) had a lot of burnt residue inside the switch where contact was made between the two diodes. I am just wondering how it could have had enough power running between them to cause shorting/melting/burning when the fuse remained intact?

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In my experience, fuses are unreliable. I had a dead short in one of my cars that burned up a significant section of the wiring harness. Part of the wire that shorted was just plain gone, nothing left to be found. Fuse never blew. Fuse actually got so hot that it melted down into the fusebox. Big mess. Took me 2 months of working on it every available evening after work before I got it repaired.

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  • Interesting. I must say I've never heard of something that drastic with fuses not doing what they're supposed to, but it's definitely something to keep in mind.
    – Andy
    Nov 2, 2011 at 18:45
  • I've heard that also when I was looking for a fusible link replacement with a MAXI fuse. I stayed with the fusible link...
    – Gabriel Mongeon
    Dec 2, 2011 at 15:02

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