ABS Light

[phillvr6]

Advice please, My ABS light came on a couple of weeks ago, the brakes still work fine but they now lock up under heavy breaking. The cars in at a specialist on Wednesday to be put on the diagnostics and hopefully be sorted. I have a feeling that its something to do with a sensor somewhere near the rear neaside wheel. This is because when you start the car the ABS light does a check then goes off and at the same time there is a click from the rear nearside of the car. Anyway enough rambling from me, over to you. By the way its a Corrado VR6. Cheers

[pbrettle]

Not sure what system the VR6 has, but basically it is a sign that one of the sensors has failed and therefore you dont have ABS. I know of plenty of people that have had cars with ABS lights permanently on (just put masking tape over them) as they dont work... though they do confirm that the ABS wont work at all by removing the fuse for the system... then it is just a case that you have 'normal' brakes now with no ABS...

Obviously not a situation that can continue (an MOT failure by the way) but usually nothing major. Just a sensor failure (probably an expensive part - you just know it will be knowing VAG!). But should be simple to fix and identify. Almost all ABS systems monitor the sensors to check if they are working - nothing worse than a malfunctioning ABS system - and should anything look like it is not working then it will switch off the system alltogether. So shouldnt be a major problem.... just a little disconcerting...

Cheers,

Paul

P.S. Kinda like an airbag system - rarely go wrong, but you want it to fail OFF if something doesnt look OK rather than remain active and potentially do something totally wrong...

[phillvr6]

Thank you sir

[Tripps]

You're lucky, when the ABS light in my Celica came on I was doing 80mph in the outside lane on he A3, tapped the brakes to check - NOT THERE!!!

Thank god the road wasn't too busy at the time, put the blinkers on and used engine braking to come to a stop.

Turned out a crap service fitted calipers had sieved, and the discs warped (the smell was lovely!), but what a dumb failsafe, still had the rear discs there to use, surely it could have just disabled the fronts or something, anything would have been better than no breaks.

The manual says "stop the car immediately and take to your dealer", where-as "bend over and kiss your goodbye" would have been more accurate!

[seafarer]

I don't have antilock breaks, and have discovered the "difference" between my car and my mom's (which does have ABS) during the heavy breaking type situations that you describe. If you don't have ABS, you can tap on your brakes as you stop, instead of one solid push, and I've found that helps keep me from skidding. I believe the ABS works the same way except it's several times a second so it's smoother than a driver could do. Of course, I could be talking out my ar5e. Good luck.