ABS Light Came On, Brakes Feel Fine! What Do I Do Now?

hey friends it's len here from 1a auto so in today's video we have an issue where there's an abs light on the dash we want to diagnose it so i'm going to go ahead and hop inside this car and go through the steps of the diagnosis process [Music] all right now what i want to do here is just take it for a little ride i'm going to pay attention to the dash and i want to confirm that the abs light is on i'm looking at it right here i can see that the abs lights on stable track lights on and what i also want to do is just test the brakes themselves essentially what i want to do is just make sure that the brakes are functioning the way that they need to and if they aren't then that's also something that we're going to have to pay attention to it could potentially be a hydraulic issue now what i'm feeling for here is just to see if the abs is kicking on while i'm turning a lot of times what you might hear is a little from the abs pump under the hood or you might even feel a little bit of a vibration coming from your brake pedal now at this point i'm going to go ahead and try to do a heavy stop or a hard stop the vehicle stopped perfectly i didn't feel the abs kick on but the abs light is still on so i'm going to go ahead and drive this for a couple more seconds here just to confirm that there's no issue with the hydraulic aspect of this i want to make sure that the brakes are functioning properly and do another hard stop now that felt perfect i don't have any issue where i feel as though it's a hydraulic thing so what i want to do now is just hook up my scanner so i can read and see if there's any codes there's going to be a couple different types of scanners you can use you can use a nice cheap one like this right here but this one's really only good for pulling codes so maybe you're going to have a code that says you have a front sensor issue maybe a rear sensor issue but if you had a more expensive scanner something that you might have an automotive garage you're going to be able to graph things and be able to figure out exactly what's going on i'm going to use the expensive scanner because i have it i'm going to find the let's find the obd port right here we'll plug this in at this point you can either start the car or just put it in the on position now scanner's booting up all right so it's boot up let's go ahead and put in our vehicle that's our vehicle now the next thing i'm going to do is just read my codes let's look for abs on here electronic brake control we'll go with that continue all right so what i'm seeing here is there's definitely an issue with the left rear wheel speed sensor it's in that area so that's generally where i'm going to want to start diagnosing but i don't want to stop here the best thing you can do is just take note of these codes right here write them down take a picture or just leave them in the scanner but definitely don't delete them the next thing i want to do is go ahead and graph it so i'm going to get out of this go back out of this and now i'm going to find my special tests no not what am i doing data stream and now i'm going to go to my data stream right here and then we're of course going to look for the abs again so electronic brake control we can try that i'm just going to double check make sure there's nothing else i want to try looks pretty good good so this is pretty much going to talk to me about all these different things right here so now that brings up this screen right here and there's different options that i can go through but essentially what i really want to focus on is just the abs braking data right here so i'm going to go ahead and select that and now at this point we have a clear view of all the different things here we have wheel speed sensors over here left front right front and then if you were to look over at the other side you can see left rear and then right rear so we want to pay attention to those they say in miles per hour while i'm driving if i find that three of them say the same amount but the other one for some reason is not well that tells me that i'm definitely heading in the right direction and i know where to start so now what i'm going to do is i'm just going to filter the data i only want to pay attention to certain things so i'll highlight exactly what i want to see and then we'll sort it and then we're going to filter the data right here continue and now this is only going to show me what i want to see which is very helpful especially since i don't want to be distracted while i'm driving let's go ahead and take this for a road test i can start driving here now of course we only want to do this while we're in a safe environment i'm going to do this in an enclosed area i don't have to worry about any cars or anything coming around me but i'm still going to be paying attention we're just going to drive this and every once in a while i'm going to try to look down at that scanner and i just want to see if any of those sensors are dropping out let's see so i can definitely see something's going on here just do a couple circles see what it looks like when you're testing stuff like this you don't necessarily need to go highway speeds or anything like that generally you can just do it right in a parking lot if you can get it up to approximately 20 maybe 30 miles per hour you really don't need to go too much faster than that especially where you're going to be distracted while you're driving oh yeah definitely got something strange going on as i'm driving this i'm also paying attention to see if i hear any humming noises a humming noise generally means you have an issue with a wheel bearing it could potentially be loose or worn out in some way i don't actually hear anything but you want to test this at different speeds go slow go a little faster stay within the speed limit all right i've got what i needed to do so now i'm just going to go ahead and get it into the studio so i can have a look at what's going on the next thing i'm going to do is go ahead and get underneath the hood here and i want to make sure i check my brake fluid master reservoir right here go ahead and give it a little wiggle and of course you can open it up to check that fluid level if it looks like the fluid is extremely low there's a possibility there could be air in the system and that could cause an issue this fluid looks perfect i'm not worried about it let's get under the car now to continue diagnosing this this is going to be easiest with all four wheels up off the ground i want to make sure i grab on to all four wheels and i'm going to give them a little shake up and down side to side and give them a spin i'm trying to see if there's any movement and any noise coming from any of the bearings [Music] now i know that my issue stemmed from the left rear but i always check all four a little bit of a scraping noise but definitely no hum i'm gonna check all four and i'm gonna end up on the left rear okay now this is the one that we know has a problem as far as the scanner says i don't feel any movement coming from this i don't hear growl but i'm going to continue on i'm going to lift this up a little bit further so i can take a look from the back side got the wheel up off the ground here and i have a nice clear view of where my abs sensor wire is and it leads to the sensor in this particular application it goes through the knuckle on the back side here it comes right through and then that's where the sensing agent is the next thing i want to do is take a look at this wire as you can tell on this one somebody went ahead and wired or tied it to this right here and it's probably because they were worried it might rub up against something but go ahead and flex it around and just kind of inspect it make sure it doesn't have any areas that it's rubbed through cracked or damaged in any way continue following that wire up to its connection point that can pretty much be anywhere on this particular vehicle it leads up along here up up top right there up up top i can't even find it now a lot of times these are going to be hiding because they want to be protected i'm just going to go ahead and get stuff out of the way so we can access the connector now following that abs wire we can see where the connector is let's go ahead and pop that apart can you see it watch your eyes i try to get as much as possible now once you disconnect that i just want to pay attention see if i see any corrosion in here if i see corrosion that's obviously no good it's going to cause restriction and it could potentially cause an abs issue let's check both sides of that they actually look really good so i'm not necessarily worried about that i'm gonna go ahead and reconnect this in we'll put this part we'll put this back together move along now the next thing we're going to do is pay attention to where the abs sensor is supposed to take a reading a lot of times there's going to be some sort of exciter ring sometimes it might be magnetic or other times it might just be a piece of steel if we come around this side you have a better look let's go ahead and point at it right along this area right here is where you should be able to see some excited little rings on right along here is where you should be able to see the exciter ring i'm going to go ahead and spin this and we'll see if we see any discrepancies in it oh yeah look at that right when i got to this point i can see that the exciter ring pretty much disappeared i'm going to continue spinning it here oh wow this is really bad and then here it comes it's back again i want to see if this thing flakes off oh wow well i'd have to say we found the issue right there that would be a reason why it seemed as though the abs was working and then kicking out essentially the reason why is because as the abs was going the reason why is because as the axle was spinning and the bearing was spinning this exciter ring was coming by the abs sensor it was taking a reading while it could and then it would disappear when it couldn't so we need to go ahead and replace this bearing clear the code and then retest it okay so we found a piece of the magnetic part of the abs exciter ring i can tell it is because it sticks to this metal right here looking at the brand new bearing you can see that it has the magnetic strip right across here it goes all the way around and it's not damaged in any way now i'm not going to go ahead and take this magnet and stick it against there because it could potentially cause some damage but what i will do is go ahead and replace the bearing for you we're going to clear the code and then we're going to make sure that we fix the issue to access the bearing i'm going to go ahead and take the wheel off of here i'll fully remove the brakes and then we're going to start removing the bearing now we're going to take the caliper off of here we've got a couple 15 millimeter headed bolts now [Music] definitely a 15. um so [Music] i always take a peek at my brakes it only makes sense these look pretty good i'm just going to go ahead and hang this aside making sure i put no pressure on my flex hose i don't want to go ahead and damage that in any way slide it up in here hopefully now we can remove the rotor i've got a couple bolts on there just pop those off or no i don't just one bolt apparently it's gonna fit [Music] now we can start removing the bearing from the back side it's pretty big well boo this bottom bolt right here is going to be a little hard to get to on this one see what size it is at least bigger than that all right so that fits on the bolts right here but what i need to do is go ahead and get this bolt out of here so i can swing this bigger i need a bigger gun perfect [Music] okay i've got that nice and loose get the shock off of here [Music] [Music] nothing's ever easy [Music] get that out of here now i can grab onto this i can move it around a little bit and i should be able to have access to all three of my mounting bolts this lower one right here is going to be the hardest to get to it's sitting right above the control arm i'm going to try to use my swivel obviously you want to be very careful not to damage your axle let's try from this side [Music] wow that's really in there okay do the same the other two much room in here never enough room and use this ratchet so doing a ratchet like a caveman there we are that one is hidden in there as well get my socket on okay perfect oh dang that happened he knew one of those let me get this shock out of the way see where i can put it on here somewhere i sure don't make these things easy to get to obviously getting the right angle here is the hardest part working on the back side of this thing safety glasses on here see if i can break this ratchet so so finally okay let's grab our hammer knock this thing off of here [Music] frozen in there pretty good of course it is before i start hammering too much on that i'm going to put this on here you [Music] so now we can have a look at this bearing up close look at that the exciter rings completely demolished it's not going to make good contact and you're going to have an issue let's get this out of here obviously the next thing that i want to do is go ahead and clean up this area while i'm cleaning i also want to inspect the abs sensor itself just take a look at it make sure it doesn't look like it's damaged here's a little brush just try to clean it off this one has some crud on it i should use something different use this brush instead i want to try to get all inside here as much as possible and then i'm going to go ahead and get all along this area here the reason why that is we want to make sure that we have good contact from the bearing to the knuckle and of course we want to make sure that we have a good ground going through it as well now i'm going to put some copper never sees i want to try to get on the splines of the axle here not necessarily the threads and i also want to get it along this outer portion right there try not to get it on the abs sensor let's grab our new bearing of course i'm also going to clean up the backing plate as well [Music] of course we're going to want to make sure that we clean up the threads on our mounting bolts so so all right that looks better let's get back to the car hey hey okay let's go ahead and put some thread locker on all of our mounting bolts right here all right now we can take our backing plate and our new bearing get this shield on here the wheel bearing on the axle [Music] all right line up the base backing plate grab three bolts this lower one's going to be the hardest of course i'll tell you nothing's ever easy come on try this one um [Music] now snug these up i can get this in here and down along from the bottom there it is come on my ratchet hope this one doesn't break snug this one in here is going to be hard to get to let's see come on it's only hard to get in there all right let's see if this thing come on take it forever let's try this instead all right that's better obviously it's not the best to use a swivel when you're torquing things but that's what i got to do to get in here let's torque this to manufacturer specifications as we start installing perfect okay wheel bearing is torqued backing plates lined up get this jack under here make sure i can access everything i need to access here looks pretty good try to get this shock lined up okay so um [Music] let's try going up a little bit change let's see is i'm just gonna move this a little bit try to get this lined up cars are great for making you crazy this out of here for that caliper mounting that um torque this all right double check make sure you have everything secured this looks good now we can start putting the brakes back together that looks good i always like to use some copper never seas on all my mating surfaces now let's continue on to cleaning up the back side of the rotor we want to make sure this is nice and clean free of debris [Music] [Music] that looks good i've got my bolt hole there never use red thread locker on these bolts you want them to come out fairly easily put that in position this screw right here you don't necessarily need to torque it it just kind of holds the rotor on there let's grab this i'm gonna mount the caliper next here we already inspected our pads everything looked good put this aside [Music] got our two mounting bolts both in before you snug either of them up obviously make sure you torque these super important you don't want to mess with your brakes that's for sure once again we're going to double check everything make sure everything's secured everything's definitely torqued this looks great now we can move along to that axle nut thread locker get this axle nut on here whenever you're tightening up a bearing nut you definitely want to make sure you never use an air gun on these you could potentially cause some damage to them in which case why'd you even replace the bearing anyway go ahead and snug this as much as possible we'll get it closer to the ground and then we can torque it looks good let's get this a little lower grab this i put the bar here just because i don't want this to spin on me if i don't have it there never going to be able to torque it so i always just kind of put the pry bar here some people will want to put the wheel back on and take out the center cover it's not really my style just do it like that make sure that's torqued now we can get the wheel on let's torque that to manufacturer's specs too [Music] start on all of your lug nuts we'll snug these up get it on the ground and then we'll torque them to manufacturer specifications of course you definitely don't want your wheel loosened up on you while you're driving down the road we're going to make sure we torque these in a crisscross manner the reason why that is because of course if you torqued it just all in a row it could potentially be a little off kilter you hit a bump it's going to come loose on you all right i know everything's torqued at this point i'll continue on by getting it off the lift i'm going to go ahead and pull up the codes on this again i'm going to clear them and then i'll re-road test it okay so i get it pulled up again brake control module let's see what's going on check my codes here we go so there's my codes obviously i just fixed it i want to go ahead and clear these are you sure yep turn on ignition do not start engine clearing codes [Music] okay so at this point we have no codes in the system so what i'm going to do now is i'm going to go ahead and take it out of the studio and i want to take it for a road test i want to make sure that i do a whole bunch of little turns i'm going to go in a straight line and generally like i said before you don't necessarily need to go above 25 or 30 miles per hour but you do want to drive for a short bit at least generally i just want to make sure that the light's going to stay out so let's go ahead and take it for a road test all right i'm ready for my road test i also set up the scanner so that way there we can watch the data again i want to watch each of those sensors and make sure they're functioning properly we want each of the miles per hour to be approximately within two miles an hour of each other we're also going to pay attention to the dash i want to make sure that my traction light doesn't come on i also want to make sure obviously the air bag and i also want to make sure obviously the abs light doesn't turn back on oh drive around a little bit here looking at my dash no abs light love it no traction light also great still got that check engine light but it's a story for another day it's a nice day for a ride anyway if you ask me oh yeah this is perfect i feel confident we fixed the issue at this point you always want to make sure when you diagnose something you actually fix the issue as well and then you know you want to confirm it you need to drive it afterward i can't just go ahead and say well we found an issue with something but we're not actually going to fix it that doesn't make any sense i wanted to fix it that way there i know for sure that it's fixed let's get back to the studio okay friends so we found our abs issue i had an issue where i had signal dropping in and out while i was driving that led me to the left rear i went there i started poking around one of the first things that i like to look at while i'm back there is of course the abs wire if it's worn or damaged in any way that's something that you're going to want to replace but generally if it is damaged you're just going to have a sensor that doesn't even work the next thing that i like to do is of course i went ahead and i checked that exciter ring for me personally we had the magnetic strip right here and you can see that it was completely rotted out and broken off that's the reason why while this was spinning it kind of got a signal and then it went away got a signal went away we went ahead we replaced the bearing i cleared the codes re-road tested it we watched the chart and it worked perfectly i hope you liked the video i hope you learned a little something if it's something that you think you want to share with somebody because it might help them out go ahead and share it with them if you like the video or love the video go ahead and smash on the like button and of course make sure you subscribe and ring the bell thanks

Channel: 1A Auto: Repair Tips & Secrets Only Mechanics Know

Views: 1,843,779

Keywords: ABS light came on, abs and wheel hub, abs sensor broken, acadia, accord, avalanche, brakes feel fine, cadillac, camry, can bad wheel hub make abs light come on, chevy, cts, ctx, do wheel bearings affect abs, dodge, equinox, escalade, explorer, f150, ford, gmc, honda, how to diagnose ABS light, ram, sierra, silverado, suburban, tacoma, tahoe, toyota, tundra, what does abs light mean, what to do if abs light is on, why is abs light on when brakes work fine, yukon

Id: W6Yu6yKyTyI

Length: 46min 8sec (2768 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 09 2021