The last two times I've had brake light issues in my '97 Grand Caravan, it simply needed more brake fluid. A quick trip to the local tire store, free top up, and away I went. Good luck!

Thanks! After posting, we went on and checked the brake fluid, which was low, so we topped it up (there is no local tire store here, but there is a convenience story that stocks oil, radiator fluid, and brake fluid.) Brake light did not come on after that. Of course, it also didn't come on when my husband drove it some 10-15 miles.

We will get the brakes formally checked in the next week or two. They were worked on last year and should not have started losing fluid. There've been no seriously hard stops.

I'm glad the problem seems to be solved, and also glad that you'll have someone look at it more officially fairly soon.

(A friend's car came to a halt after some warning light or another had been on intermittently. It's fixed now, but it broke down in a parking lot a couple of miles from her house at night first. I would not want that to happen to anyone in your household.)

Brake light can be anything from a dirty sensor that will cause the antilock brakes to be overly rough to a complete failure of braking leading to some very exciting moments.

Probably should be checked out. Might be a $10 fix.

Thanks! Turned out to be (at least the obvious thing) low brake fluid. That's now been replaced, and the light didn't come on during a trip to the city, some in-city driving, and back home yesterday.

Glad it was the $10 fix.

I'm not trusting it completely, but a guy at the nearest car-repair place said even if the brake pads needed replacing, it would be safe if low brake fluid were topped up and the brake light didn't come on again. So it will go to a brake repair place after we've got M- moved into his apartment next week.

Worn out brake pads squeal, so if you aren't hearing horrible noises when you slow down, your pads have at least some life yet. One concern when you add brake fluid is that you could get air in the system, which means the brakes need bleeding. Brake bleeding is another quick and cheap task. In fact the guy probably did it when he did his inspection.

These brakes make deep guttaral grinding noises, and have both before and after being reworked at a specialty brake place. I was told it was the "ceramic disks" and they just do that. R's car has squealing brakes, even with new pads.

"The guy" who checked the fluid level and put fluid in was R, who is not a mechanic but a spouse. The place he talked to didn't do anything that I know of. So if there's air in the lines...there's air in the lines.