I noticed whilst reversing up to a garage that the high level brake lamp on my Edge is not the size that it appears to be when looking at it from behind. Perhaps I have faulty LEDs in mine. Can anyone confirm if theirs is the same. The brake lamp appears to be about 52cm wide but only the central 26cm lights up. 

Yes can confirm this is correct not all the light of the high level brake eluminates.

I wonder why they have such a large light if only half lights up ?  A bit useless. 

Just checked mine. It is the same as Ian's i.e. the central section (12 LEDs) only lights up rather than the full width. Did you find out if this is a fault?

On 23 May 2017 at 2:50 PM, Edge of Reason said:

I noticed whilst reversing up to a garage that the high level brake lamp on my Edge is not the size that it appears to be when looking at it from behind. Perhaps I have faulty LEDs in mine. Can anyone confirm if theirs is the same. The brake lamp appears to be about 52cm wide but only the central 26cm lights up.

 

Is it a possibility more light up when emergency stopping to warn others behind? 

Turn on rear fogs see if anymore lights up?

I thought that but how would they know only half of it normally lights up? 

Having looked closely at the light, it appears to have 12 LED bulbs in the central section with 5 blank spaces for bulbs either side, so I would suggest now that it's just a design feature. A pointless design feature you could argue. I think the more high level brake lamp the better so why they haven't filled the whole thing is beyond me. If you've ever been behind a Bentley Continental GT when it's braking you will see that the whole width of the rear windscreen lights up, which is very impressive and puts the Edge's effort to shame. 

On 2017-6-4 at 3:01 PM, Edge of Reason said:

Having looked closely at the light, it appears to have 12 LED bulbs in the central section with 5 blank spaces for bulbs either side, so I would suggest now that it's just a design feature. A pointless design feature you could argue.

 

In my experience (designing, procuring and developing automotive electronic components) I suspect it was originally designed with all 22 LED's and as part of a cost down/cost saving excersise 10 were removed! I've seen switches, lamps, harnesses, ECU's, Clusters, etc all sourced cheaper or functinality removed just to save pennies on each component ... scale that by 1,000,000+ vehicles (multiple components per vehicle) and you can see why they do it.

I can understand penny pinching but they shouldn't fit something that by its appearance looks like it doesn't perform the function it was designed to do.  The Edge is supposed to be a premium product, not one that Ford would want to give the impression of being put together on a shoestring. 

47 minutes ago, Edge of Reason said:

I can understand penny pinching but they shouldn't fit something that by its appearance looks like it doesn't perform the function it was designed to do.  The Edge is supposed to be a premium product, not one that Ford would want to give the impression of being put together on a shoestring. 

There are few car manufacturers (with cars less than 100K) that don't scrape every peeny from the build cost. Some are just smarter on where they cut their costs, i.e. not on something directly impacting the drivers experience. You would beleive how much those £400-£600 clusters and £200-£400 ecus actually cost the likes of Ford! You certainly arent talking 3 figures!! They company I worked for sold an £18 supplied part in the service department for £350! Its all about maximising profit. Saying that, the cost of development is huge (upto £200K per component). A typical moulded part is around £20K, just for the mould. Now have a look and count the number of moulded parts on your car. Then every part is validated and tested which can be upto £40K per part.

The look of parts, i.e. headlights, light clusters is usually driven by styling and appearance over function. The only function is to pass local mandatory legislation and corporate look-and-feel, the rest is left to the arty design teams imagination. Maybe the upper brake light didn't look right narrower or blanked out at the sides? The light is off more than its on, so maybe how it looks in the off state drove the 'form' and styling, with legislative requirements dictating the number of LEDs and so drove 'function'.

I have spoken to my son, a mechanic, about this. He said that he has seen on a lot of newish cars that during an emergency braking situation that the whole of the upper brake light does light up and also starts flashing along with the all the indicators as well.

That seems crazy. I gets the indicators flashing, think that's fairly common on cars now during heavy braking, and I've heard of the brightness of the brake light becoming brighter under heavy braking- but how would anyone following know that all the LEDs don't usually illuminate? 

I'm with you there NeilRS. Surely where safety is concerned, you can't have too much, so if a brake light has the option to fit 22 LEDs in it, why would you just stick 12 in and pretend it has 22 ?  If I'm braking, whether that's in an emergency or otherwise, I want the person behind me to be in no doubt that I'm braking. That's like having shut lines for 4 doors but the back ones don't actually open and the handles are only for decoration. (Poor and extreme analogy, I know, but you get my drift !). 

Hi, everyone, I know this post is old, but thought i would mention this,I have taken out this brake light and can definitely  confirm  there is no lights on either  side after taking it apart just blank spaces, now in process  of putting a strip of red LEDs to see how this looks

23 hours ago, Kevin Holloway said:

now in process  of putting a strip of red LEDs to see how this looks

When your sat behind the wheel, you're not going to see it, so why go to the effort for a bunch of complete strangers! All they need to know is when you've got your foot on the brake pedal!