I fixed my aftermarket remote starter with old brake light bulbs!

[Sunder]

I fixed my aftermarket remote starter!
How?
I did it by changing my rear stop light bulbs from LED to incandescent. I’m an engineering genius.
Ugh.

I never used the remote starter all summer, but with winter coming, I thought I’d check it.
(it’s a necessity here on certain days - thanks to my old boss for forcing us to park a 5 min walk in a field with no block heater power. Unless you live in a norther area, you may not understand the issue when it drops below -30’C or F and not be able to plug it in).
It’s also “nice” to have on other colder days, just to have it warmed up prior to getting to it. But I digress.

The remote starter failed with the error code “the foot brake pedal was ON”.
Which it wasn’t. But what would make it give think that?

I remembered that the canbus system on TJ’s went all haywire if you put LED in the turn signals.
A few years back, I had installed the flasher to “fix” the LED turn signal issue, and have been happy with it.

This summer, I replaced almost everything with LEDs, including the brake lights (which mimiced the dual filament thingie).
I enjoyed the brighter led brake lights. I also liked the idea that the electrical load overall on the system was lower. (I had replaced 3 burnt out headlight switches before before installing relays…and then LED headlights).

The “electrical cost savings” is quite minimal with brake lights I imagine, but I was buying other bulbs, so I figured, “why not?”.

The “not” part to LED brake lights is that it apparently makes my remote starter fail

So now I have 2-4 options:
1. Keep the old incandescent brake bulbs in
2. Figure out some load resister to mimic incandescent bulbs in the brake lights? Would this be the same size resister as the ones I read about for turn signals?
3. Wire in another brake light socket with an incandescent bulb in it? Which is kinda pointless IMO.
4. figure out some way to bypass/fool the remote starter from checking the "brake pedal" to not use electrical load of bulbs

So unless someone knows an easy/cheap way to “fix” the remote starter from falsely thinking the brake pedal is on…because I have LED brake lights, I’m probably going to have to keep using the incandescent bulbs for now. It’s not a major issue, just a bit psychologically annoying, because I bought LED bulbs that work perfectly…except for the remote.

If anything, I hope this helps anyone else that suddenly finds they are experiencing remote starter (or other device) issues that are related to LED brake lights.

 

[Chris]

Interesting... so apparently remote starters don't work well with LED taillights?

TJs don't have CANBUS though, that came on 2007+ JKs.

Here's a quote from @Mr. Bills

"A Controller Area Network (CAN bus) is a vehicle bus standard designed to allow microcontrollers and devices to communicate with each other in applications without a host computer."

From what I have read, "CAN Bus LED"'s have a built in resistor to draw the same amount of power as a conventional bulb. The reason is that vehicles with a CAN Bus system monitor the status of some of the car's lights and the theory is that replacing an incandescent bulb with an ordinary LED causes the car's diagnostics to interpret the LED as a burned out incandescent bulb.

Your 2000 Wrangler does not use the CAN Bus system, which did not become mandatory on all automobiles sold in the U.S. until the 2008 model year.

I read a post somewhere on this forum stating that no Jeep 4.0 ever used a CAN bus - all 97-2000 TJs are CCD bus; all 2001-2006 TJs are PCI bus, and the PCM is integral to bus and data transfer.

Please don't ask me to explain further - its above my pay grade.​

 

[Sunder]

Ahh, CCD bus I should say - thank you.

 

[noshoken]

I fixed my aftermarket remote starter!
How?
I did it by changing my rear stop light bulbs from LED to incandescent. I’m an engineering genius.
Ugh.

I never used the remote starter all summer, but with winter coming, I thought I’d check it.
(it’s a necessity here on certain days - thanks to my old boss for forcing us to park a 5 min walk in a field with no block heater power. Unless you live in a norther area, you may not understand the issue when it drops below -30’C or F and not be able to plug it in).
It’s also “nice” to have on other colder days, just to have it warmed up prior to getting to it. But I digress.

The remote starter failed with the error code “the foot brake pedal was ON”.
Which it wasn’t. But what would make it give think that?

I remembered that the canbus system on TJ’s went all haywire if you put LED in the turn signals.
A few years back, I had installed the flasher to “fix” the LED turn signal issue, and have been happy with it.

This summer, I replaced almost everything with LEDs, including the brake lights (which mimiced the dual filament thingie).
I enjoyed the brighter led brake lights. I also liked the idea that the electrical load overall on the system was lower. (I had replaced 3 burnt out headlight switches before before installing relays…and then LED headlights).

The “electrical cost savings” is quite minimal with brake lights I imagine, but I was buying other bulbs, so I figured, “why not?”.

The “not” part to LED brake lights is that it apparently makes my remote starter fail

So now I have 2-4 options:
1. Keep the old incandescent brake bulbs in
2. Figure out some load resister to mimic incandescent bulbs in the brake lights? Would this be the same size resister as the ones I read about for turn signals?
3. Wire in another brake light socket with an incandescent bulb in it? Which is kinda pointless IMO.
4. figure out some way to bypass/fool the remote starter from checking the "brake pedal" to not use electrical load of bulbs

So unless someone knows an easy/cheap way to “fix” the remote starter from falsely thinking the brake pedal is on…because I have LED brake lights, I’m probably going to have to keep using the incandescent bulbs for now. It’s not a major issue, just a bit psychologically annoying, because I bought LED bulbs that work perfectly…except for the remote.

If anything, I hope this helps anyone else that suddenly finds they are experiencing remote starter (or other device) issues that are related to LED brake lights.

I know this is an old(er) thread but stumbled across it after I also figured out that my remote start wouldn't work after I replaced all my exterior lights with LEDs. I don't even own a jeep but figured I'd let you know what I did to fix mine. I had an assortment of resistors and kept trying different values until I found a range that worked. 10k was too little - car would crank over but immediately stop after starting. 56k was too much - car would start but brake pedal was never "recognized". I tried two 56k in parallel (28k effective) and it worked. I found a 22k and that worked so used that between the brake pedal wire (12v when pressed) and the remote start which happens to be a coolstart RS900 V installed in a 2000 suburban. Hope this helps.

 

[Jerry Bransford]

What benefit did you gain by going to LEDs that required those heat-generating/current-drawing resistors be added in parallel to the LEDs so they would work?

 

[noshoken]

What benefit did you gain by going to LEDs that required those heat-generating/current-drawing resistors be added in parallel to the LEDs so they would work?

The resister was put between the tap of the brake pedal (12v when applied) wire and the remote start unit only. The 12v input detection was fooled by the bulb change to think the brake was always applied (it wasn’t). The resistor I put in was just a normal 4 band resistor and the remote start now correctly recognizes the brake pedal being applied.

In general though the lights are brighter than the old bulbs I replaced. Instead of adding load resistors to address the common fast flashing issues, I found a relay at advanced Auto that is made to work with LEDs.

 

[915_Tahoe]

The resister was put between the tap of the brake pedal (12v when applied) wire and the remote start unit only. The 12v input detection was fooled by the bulb change to think the brake was always applied (it wasn’t). The resistor I put in was just a normal 4 band resistor and the remote start now correctly recognizes the brake pedal being applied.

In general though the lights are brighter than the old bulbs I replaced. Instead of adding load resistors to address the common fast flashing issues, I found a relay at advanced Auto that is made to work with LEDs.

Buy any chance do you have a picture of how you did it. I also stumbled across this post and I also own a Chevy and having the same issues. I did the remote start, then months later I added the L.E.D. lamps and not able to use my remote start. Thanks in advance.

 

[noshoken]

Buy any chance do you have a picture of how you did it. I also stumbled across this post and I also own a Chevy and having the same issues. I did the remote start, then months later I added the L.E.D. lamps and not able to use my remote start. Thanks in advance.

Nothing fancy - just cut the wire that was tapped from the switch at the top of the brake pedal arm (12v when brake was applied) and was connected to my remote start brake input and soldered in the resistor in the middle of that cut wire. It worked fine for the remote start BUT when I went on a long trip and tried to turn on my cruise control - that wouldn’t work. I tried to put various resistors in multiple spots in that system but never got it to work so put it all back to stock and gave up. Since all my other bulbs were replaced with LEDs I ordered CANBUS compliant 3157 replacement LED bulbs from Amazon (Syneticusa) and that worked. Of course putting stock bulbs in worked too. If you don’t have cruise control or don’t care if it works and still want a pic I’ll check to see if I left the resistor in or not (just don’t remember if I took it out since it wouldn’t be needed with the Syneticusa bulbs).