Greetings:

I wanted to see if I could get an opinion from anyone who may have had a similar experience; yesterday my dad picked up a clean '96 960 sedan - seems like a tight, well-maintained car. On the way home, the brake lights stuck on and a strong electrical smell came from under the dash. He pulled over and I stuck my hand under the dash to see what the problem was. Since I couldn't see up there very well (and didn't have any Torx drivers to remove lower dash cover) I figured it was the brake light switch. I contorted myself as best as I could in the footwell and started to see smoke! Well, I wiggled the wiring that I believe led to switch and the lights went out - and wouldn't come back on. We then had to use the override button to get it out of park. I checked the fuse (#3 I believe) and it looked OK. My question is, I believe the switch is fried, but I hope nothing else is. Since the fuse didn't blow, the shift interlock won't work and the wiring looked OK when I took the cover off this morning (and nothing looked burnt or melted under there) is it likely that it is just a bad switch? The plunger on the switch doesn't pop out now when the pedal is depressed.



Thanks for any feedback!

Andrew S.