Hey guys. Just thought I'd relay my recent experience with a confusing warning light situation. The symptoms:

-RED illuminated BRAKE light on the tach (the same light that is illumintated when the handbrake is engaged)
-YELLOW illuminated TCS light on the tach the (the one with the exclamation point in a triangle surrounded by a circular arrow)
-RED BRAKE notification on the information display screen on the tach (looks like two brake pads around a circle with an exclamation point)

The lights came on for me randomly while I was driving, but I noticed no change in the feel of the car. Drove it like that for two days, and the lights came back on every time I turned the car on. The morning of day 3, when I got in my car to go to work, the brake pedal went to the floor. No brake fluid. I gingerly drove it to my trustworthy indie mechanic (shout-out to J&B in Hamilton!) who informed me that my left rear caliper was leaking and needed to be replaced.

So if you happen to get similar lights on your dash, take a lesson from me: monitor your brake fluid early and often. I was lucky that the major failure happened overnight and not on the highway or something.

As a side note, I had replaced that caliper 4 months ago with a remanufactured A1 Cardone. I had a nightmare with getting it installed from the beginning, and this was the second one that Rock Auto sent me since the first one was seized right out of the box. Lesson learned: never ever cheap out and buy anything made by Cardone. Best case, you'll lose money on it in the long run, worst case, something important fails at the wrong time and you have a really bad day.

Hope this helps!

 

Thank you for the tip.