Brake light warning lamps and switch help

[gek330i]

Hey guys, I posted this on "another" forum yesterday, but no one has replied yet.
I'm guessing since here most, if not all members, are the most knowledgeable, that maybe some can shed some light on this because it is bugging the heck out of me... Here's the post:
__________________________________________________ __________
Hope someone can help me here:
This morning both brake lamp warning lamps came on. Coincidence? Well, I had one lamp go out about 2 years ago and then the other one within minutes of each other. So I thought nothing of it.
It was very bright when I was trying to determine which one was out. I always have enough spare bulbs around. Ended replacing all the bulbs and both brake warning lights were still on.
Searched a few other places and read about the brake light switch going bad. Also looked this up on the TIS CD:
http://members.roadfly.com/kunhage/brake_light_switch_TIS.gif
Called the dealer and they had the part for $16, so I just came back with it, replaced it (took 15 minutes) and the friggin' warning lights are still on!. :(
The break lamps work properly.

Do I have to reset the OBC? Take it to the dealer to reset the error? or will it just go away after several ON/OFF cycles? :dunno:

Thanks in advance for any help.

[Roadstergal]

This goes behind the brake and is depressed when you press the brake? Silly question, but did you try sticking your hand behind the brake and pressing the thing manually?

[gek330i]

Silly question, but did you try sticking your hand behind the brake and pressing the thing manually?
That was my first guess, but this is not a spring loaded switch. It's actually a proximity sensor. A metal tab in the brake pedal makes contact with it in the rest position, when you press the pedal the metal tab goes away from the sensor (switch) and that's how it's activated.

[Terri Kennedy]

Are you sure you don't have a problem with the handbrake "switch", which is actually a cheezy nylon spacer, spring, and copper clip. Take a look at that.

[gek330i]

OK, you learn something new everyday.
After seeing that the bulbs were OK, contacts looked good and had a new stop switch I feared that the LSZ would be bad so I started to look for a bad connection maybe to the LSZ and using the Bentley manual and looking at everything that is hooked up to it, I saw that the license plate bulbs are also monitored. I didn't know that. I thought it was only the bulbs in the tail lamp assemblies. I go down to the car and since it was night already it was very easy to see that both license plate bulbs were out, which I had missed before when checking the other bulbs during the day. Oh well, you live, you learn. At least the friggin' warning lamps are out. I couldn't stand to look at them one more minute.

So here is the warning that I had:
http://members.roadfly.com/kunhage/tail_lamps2.jpg

and here it is now, yehaa!:
http://members.roadfly.com/kunhage/tail_lamps1.jpg

thanks for the input.