Help please. My ABS light came over weekend :( the car still feels ok to drive, and the brakes work ok in normal driving. I've checked brake fluid etc to elminate them.

A friend suggested cleaning the ABS sensor on the back of the brakes/drive shafts, so going to jack up car tonight and take a look and try cleaning the sensors etc. I don't have VAG COM, but tried a code reader today that a mate uses on his 53 reg Golf, but it didn't show any codes. If cleaning sensors doesn't work, is there anything else I can check while I have the wheels off? If the light is still on tomorrow, then I'll take it to garage to get it sorted, but could really do without and expense this month.

Car is 53 reg Octy TDI.

Thanks

Wheel sensors are the most likely thing. If the car has ASR, is that throwing a warning too?

mine came on a couple of weeks ago and i had it on a vag com turned out the front right sensor is fubared getting one on wednesday from evilbay and will see how it goes from there.

but tried a code reader today that a mate uses on his 53 reg Golf, but it didn't show any codes.

Just a quick word about the code readers, I bought one which was about £70 quid, and it reads codes great on my wife's fiat, and also reads live info from my octy (maf readings, temp, revs etc)

But.....

I have a second code reader which cost me £20 quid on e-bay, and that one is VW specific, and it picks up codes on my car, that the other one doesn't

So just because his reader doesn't pick anything up, doesn't mean it isn't there.....

Of course, Vag-com is the ultimate tool for all of this.........

Steve

See if there is anyone local with VAG-Com, ideally you need to know which sensor is playing up and be prepared to replace it, as they're quite delicate so taking them off to clean them without breaking them is nearly impossible :(

its most likely that one or more of your wheel speed sensors are at fault. i had the same issue, ABS light always on. When the time came to replace the brakes i cleaned all 4 of them and that solved the problem for me.

thanks guys, I'll try cleaning all the sensor tonight to see if that works, if not I'll let garage sort it out.

Ken - No ASR on my car, but thanks.

When i had this problem i also read that this is mostly caused by a deffective wiring on the FR wheel, so you can also check it while the wheel is off.

had a look, at the sensors, all looked ok, didn't see any damaged wiring. will get it to the garage for diag's and fixing this week.

I have the same problem, ABS light came on at the weekend along with the ASR light not going out.

Hope this won't cost too much, just forked out nearly £700 on the car in the past 2 months

I have the same problem, ABS light came on at the weekend along with the ASR light not going out.

Hope this won't cost too much, just forked out nearly £700 on the car in the past 2 months

ask to see if someone is willing to do a vagcom check for u i got mine done and changed the sensor all back to normal now (got a new sensor from ebay for a tenner) go to a dealer and they are around £30

Could be a cracked or damaged tooth where the sensor sits and reads and throwing the wrong readings (i,e the car thinks one wheel is goig faster than the other due to damaged tooth)

had this on my old vectra.

thanks guys, turned out to be faulty OSR sensor. all sorted now.