Cause of blown brake fuse (E46?)

[stu]

I recently had a blown fuse on my 95, symptom was gas gage reading 0 but after I shut it off, no restart. Check the fuses and sure enough one was blown. It's been over a month since, I have a big pile of spares in the car but wondering why it blew in the first place. Supposedly the later 318s had the 4 pin brake SW which causes this but mine is the early 2 pin. Can't see how that is it. Any clues?

[yeehawbob]

One very common problem is the Cell phone chargers being faulty or just creats a shot when being plugged in or taken out.

Another thing is to look for metal items ( like loose change) kept in the little pen holder next to the cigrett lighter. The objects can go under the lighter assembly abd start to short out different fuses at different times.
Very easy to take the whole assembly out and clean the area.

[stu]

FOUND THE PROBLEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Get this, the right rear taillamp assembly was shorting to the body metal. Clue was that it would usually happen when the hatch was opened and shut, so I remove the fuse and metered the current through a 10 ohm power resistor. Had my wife sit in the watch the needle, I went back and pounded, slammed, jiggled everything in the assend of the car. Banged the right rear corner of the car, short! Wiggle the taillight housing cleared the short. I added plastic caps to all the protruding bolt threads that attach the outside lens, no more trouble. I was very skeptical of the disco way BWM did the interconnect, all those exposed metal runners were begging to be shorted and they did. Damn!!