Hi,

I had a very similar problem last summer .

Long story but in essence I had a weel speed sensor wire repaired a few years back and last summer I got an intermittent ABS light come on again whilst on holiday, along with tpms ,power steering, and traction control.

I thought at the time it was the wheel sensor cable playing up again so would sort when I got back. Within a day of arriving home the lights where on permanently then one.morning the battery was dead. I presumed it was a duff battery as it was 5 years old so got a new one and the following day that was dead too.

So charged it up, got it to my local garage and was dreading a hunt for an electrical fault somewhere but he decided to sort the wheel speed sensor cable and low and behold all was sorted and the battery never went flat again.

So I had a new £200 battery for no reason.

So .... I recon if you get a wheel speed sensor fault then that it the culprit causing a short from a dodgy wire.

Hope that helps.

 

Hi 3rdoctavia,

thank you for reporting your experience.

I finally got my Foxwell-scanner yesterday. I first registered the new battery in the car's controls system as I was advised further up in this thread. When scanning for errors, it displayed an error from the left rear ABS-sensor. The symptoms I am seeing are very much in line with what you report, so there is hope they might mainly disappear once the ABS sensor is sorted.

However, I am also seeing some intermittent trouble with the parking sensors. Can't quite see how they would be related to ABS, but will see.

 

You are right with me potentially having spent money on a battery replacement that was not the trigger of my trouble and I was aware of that risk. However, I had trouble in winter with this battery (parking heater would not start due to low voltage) and I also had the (7 years) old battery on a charger over night without getting it to decent voltage. Therefore and as I intend to keep the car for some more years I am happy with having replaced the battery.

 

I'll report once the ABS sensor is sorted.

On 01/05/2022 at 07:12, JGO said:

However, I am also seeing some intermittent trouble with the parking sensors. Can't quite see how they would be related to ABS, but will see.

The parking sensors turn off above a certain speed, so if the wheel speed signal is messed up then it's entirely possible that a parking sensor fault will be reported.

Thank you Dave, very reassuring and makes absolute sense when you explain it that way. It would also seem unlikely that two (or more) errors appear at the same time without obvious reason and without being related one way or other.

Just a quick update:

the left rear ABS sensor got damaged by the magnetic ring on the hub after this ring heavily corroded. Parts are ordered and repair is planned for tomorrow. I'll update here afterwards.

Got the car back yesterday (workshop had received a wrong ABS sensor first). All errors are cleared and have not reappeared on the way home. So far I am quite happy.

Quite interesting and surprising (for me anyway) how many error a faulty ABS sensor can cause.

 

Again, thanks a lot to all who have contributed with their knowledge and guided me in right direction 😀

Glad to see you may have got to the bottom of the issue.

I was also surprised just to see how disruptive a failed ABS sensor can be (or associated cable).... especially leading to battery problems, reversing sensors and starting issues etc etc