ABS and TCS lihgts remains on

[howardshe]

Last night when I was driving, the ABS and TCS light came on and remained on. This happened to me once or twice before. Usually I just stopped the car and switched off the engine and then restarted it, the light would go off. Last night I did the same trick but it didn't work. The light just remained on. I continued driving for around another 40 minutes and restarted the engine again. This time it worked and the light went off eventually. I know there is a button on the dashboard controlling TCS light. In my case, when the light was on, the button didn't work either. Do you think because the TCS doing too much work on these icy roads hence cauing the problem? I just want to ask: a. Is there any danger continue driving the car when the lights are on? b. will it cause any damage to the system? c. will it be expensive if I want to have it sorted in a garage? or worth doing that?

[mikel543]

The lights probably came on because the ECU detected a fault and throught it was safer to switch the ABS & Traction control off as the two work very closely together.

You need to get the car scanned at a garage or find someone with VCDS and have the fault codes read to see what the problem is. On certain models of Octy the ABS units are prone to failure, due to an inbuilt design fault. The fix involves replacing the unit which is not cheap, but you won't know what it is until the fault codes have been read, may just be a faulty sensor or wiring.

Driving the car with the ABS/TCS lights on probably won't damage the system but it will mean that you have no ABS, traction control or ESP, so on icy and wet roads you will take longer to stop and have no stability control.

You do need to get it looked at sooner rather than later as I think ABS light on is an MOT Failure item.

[countryboy]

Yes, the light will be flashing if the traction control is activated by you spinning wheels. If it comes on permanently then it indicates a fault in the system. As the previous poster said, they are interlinked because they use the wheel speed sensors. The ABS unit failures are on those cars equipped with ESP, rather than TCS as it is a different unit. The car should drive fine when the lights are on, but you will have to use extreme caution as you wont have any traction control and ABS. It could be just a sensor problem which should be relatively cheap to repair, code scan will reveal that. Yes you must get it fixed as I'm quite sure this fault will be an MOT failure. I have heard of unscrupulous 2nd hand car dealers buying cars with this ESP unit fault cheap then disconnecting the warning lights and selling the car on as fault free.

Ian

[Browny_37]

I had the nearside rear ABS Sensor have an intermittent fault, this was revealed after I had the codes read by Nick.

Its a relatively cheap and easy fix if you have the know how.

As all it requires is the car jacking up and securing on a stand with the wheel removed, removal of the electrical connector and one bolt. And a little persuasion to get the sensor free.