Paseo Brake warning missing

[Alec-ClassB]

My 2018 Paseo has never shone a "Brake-On" light or chime when the parking brake is engaged. This caused me a major headache when the brake was accidentally lightly engaged, possibly when I moved from the drivers seat to the back of the coach and back to the drivers seat. It's a tight squeeze, and requires some facile foot manipulation, and I might have lifted the parking brake handle just enough to cause a slight engagement.

When I stopped in a friends driveway after driving a few miles, there was smoke coming from the passenger side rear wheels. A garden hose took care of the problem, and the coach drove fine, but I took it to a local Ford dealer to have him fix the non-functional brake warning light. I assumed it would be a warranty repair, but after removing the drivers seat to trace the problem, they announced that the apparent cause was a splice that they assumed Winnebago had installed.

They said the splice connected an 8ga. wire going to the coach area to the approximately 30ga. wire from the brake. They posited that the mis-matched size caused the brake light not to function. I'm an old rancher, so the exact electrical hypothesis explanation went past my semi-functional ears like a whistling teal. The Ford dealer said it wasn't a Ford warranty problem, and charged me for two hours labor.

Do any other Paseo owners have a brake-light problem, and does any of my sad story make any sense?

 

[GeorgeRad]

Splicing of any gauge wire with any gauge wire should not cause an electrical problem, the problems is what is connected to the other end of the 8-gauge wire. Whatever is on the other end splicing 8 gauge to 30 is interesting, did Winnebago folks used a staple gun to spliced them .

 

[BillsPaseo]

Something isn't making sense here. 8 gauge wire is quite large, and would normally only be used for an application with really high current (more than 10 amps). If it was spliced into a line that was only 30 gauge (very small wire, for current less than an amp), it likely was tied into a line that couldn't handle the current load. Like GeorgeRa, I'd like to see what they used to make that splice.

No brake light problems here, but now I might have to go looking for that splice...

 

[booster]

Normally these days you would see a switch like the parking brake on switch connect from the BCM to ground and the BCM would turn on the light, thus the very small wire. Hooked to a huge 8ga hot wire makes no sense to me either.

 

[Alec-ClassB]

Of course another scenario crossed my mind; I suspect the warranty reimbursement rate is probably a bit less than the $140/hour I was charged. After all, this is Kalifornia.