Car WIll Not Shift Into Gear

[bronsin]

Originally Posted by CTScott

Actually it was disabled because the fuse was blown. It wouldn't be disabled if a bulb was dead.

Right but...there was a short in the brake light circuit, the fuse blew (Im OK with that) and then because of problems with the brake light...you cant shift into drive. THAT I dont get. AND THE SYSTEM DOESNT EVEN TELL YOU THE REAL PROBLEM IE YOU DONT HAVE BRAKE LIGHTS!

I read a story about a BMW motorcycle once by its owner. It seems the bike tipped over and some brake fuild leaked out of the master cylinder. Because it detected a low brake fluid level, the computer SHUT OFF THE ABS! There was enough fluid for the brakes to work. This happened in a rainstorm. The rider saw the ABS light come on, got nervous because he now did not have his "safety" feature ABS, and had an accident!

Instead of telling the rider to add brake fluid, the computer shut off the ABS which would have worked otherwise.

[fnkngrv]

One day you might see cars with that have a diagnostic panel that provides data in real time...until then we could all have reasons to say that integrating something would be a great idea and we would all be right in most cases. It unfortunately is what it is. Perhaps in some odd way of thinking it could be construed as a "safety feature" I could think of arguments for it.