Yeah man, it sucks when ABS breaks outside of warrantee...it's a fantastic feature to have, but expensive to fix...

 

It is indeed a saga, but the last time it acted up again was in January 2009, so she's been problem free for a year and 10 months after the cleaning....i would hope the car wont return to problems for the rest of the time I own it. Im at 113,000 miles and besides this, the car has been pretty solid.

 

There are small plastic caps that cover the sensors, over time they distort and push the rear abs sensors just far enough out of spec. to cause them not to read the tone wheels at all, this causes the abs to activate all the time. Change those caps and it is all good, I replaced the actuator, sensors and all sorts of diagnosis time before I checked those caps.

 

Hi, I completed a rear brake rotor replacement a few weeks ago, and with the ebrake shoes stuck a bit had to coax the old rotor off (lots of rust came off), with a rubber malet. Then a few days ago, driving in cold weather, dry roads, I heard ABS motor noise come on, continuously (not under braking), and when stopping a clicking from the front of the car, and pedal pulsing. Sounds like I aggravated something in the rear re: abs sensors, and its giving me a bad signal. I understand from this thread that a bad sensor can fry the ABS actuator, so I snipped the two wires inside the fusible links for the ABS to disable the system, until I can pull the hubs. I did not have the ABS warning light on dash, until after I sniped the wires in the FSL.

Can someone confirm that this sounds like the same problem with the RR sensor per TSB? I have the bulletin, and wanted to be sure my symptoms are in line with what others are seeing.

Does anyone know if I can just clean this area out? or, do I need new sensor or other parts? How do you test a sensor?

Does anyone know why they grind the positioning hole, to make a notch? Is it some sort of drain?

Thanks for any feedback guys, this thread has saved me a huge amount of time diagnosing this, if its the same thing.

 

Can the caps be changed, without pulling the hubs off?

 

Few years ago I found my rear wheel hub bearing was gone bad. I replaced the complete wheel hub (Timken) and as far as I remember, I had to remove the wheel hub and baffle plate in order to have complete clear vision of abs sensor and cap at knuckle.

 

It's not just a 2004 problem. My '05 SE had this problem two weeks after I bought it. I tried cleaning the sensors, but it didn't fix it. I took it to the dealer and their diagnostic machine said one of the sensors was bad, so I replaced that but apparently not quickly enough. The actuator burned out.
I have posed the question before, but never recieved a response. Does anyone know of any aftermarket companies where you could order these actuators for cheaper, or does everyone go through the dealer? I hate having the abs/trac control lights on.

 

Thanks for the tip, guess I'll be running my codes on my OBDII, to see which sensor, and pull the hub off for a good cleaning. Still wondering if I can test the sensor somehow.

 

Previous owner probably traded it in when they told him its a couple grand to fix.

 

I did a search and this thread seemed to be the closest to my problem of the threads I found on this topic. This post is also the closest to my problem.

For about the last 6 months, the ABS light has been coming on -- but only about 1/3 of the times that the car is started. The other times it does not come on. I remember once on a longer trip, the light was not on at the start, but later came on. For the shorter trips around town, if the light is not on when the car is started, it does not come on.

I called the dealer and a service manager said that the light had to be on when they did the diagnostic of the problem. So I took it to the dealer once when the light was on, but they told me I had to wait like 2 hours to get a tech to look at it. I was not willing to leave my Max sit there idling that long -- and if I turned the engine off, there was a very good chance that the light would be off after sitting for 2 hours. So I just went home again.

The ABS on this car has never come on when it should not come on. It only works in slick conditions. I kept thinking that this problem would get worse over time and that I would take it in at that time. But the condition has stayed the same, with the ABS light only coming on about 1/3 of the time.

Any suggestions? Thanks for any help you can give me.

I currently have 106 K miles and want to keep the car till at least 200 K miles. This car has a lot of highway miles on her, so the original brake pads are in good condition. Based on some of what I have read, suspect I should consider topping off the brake fluid in the resevoir -- which I will try tomorrow. Guess I should also mention that they use very little salt on the roads here in Colorado. They only mix about 10% salt into the sand that they spread on the roads when it snows.

 

So far I have gotten no suggestions on this thread about my ABS problem.

I followed my own advice, above, and filled the brake fluid resevoir to the top with new fluid. At first this appeared to solve the problem of having the dash ABS light come on about 33% of the time. I drove her 4 times with the light staying dark. But last night, the light came on again. So this "fix" did not solve the problem. Still looking for suggestions.