My winter beater is a 1997 buick century. For the past two years the Anti-Lock light has been on. Took it to a shop, left it for two weeks, they said battery acid had corroded the brak controller board (?) $1000 and 3 months later the light comes back on. So I mess with it a little bit, change the fuse (even though the fuse didnt look busted) light goes out.
FFW to the snow storm, I brake on ice, feel the anti lock kick in, BAM, light comes back on and stays on again.
This isnt a real high priority as im a cautious driver in snow, and have never had a problem without anti-lock. But inspection is comin up soon and it would be nice to try and fix the problem.
wheel bearings? the connectors the go into the hub? check those… btw abs isnt mandatory on the inspection i dont think, and i like my car w/o better in the winter fwiw
Check the AUX post. They had a copper nut on there holding down the power cable. This often comes loose and will cause the ABS light to go on. I duno why it does this, but it does. Just something to check out.
the ABS sensors on GM FWD cars suck…u might need to replace a wheel bearing…but if the bearing isnt bad need to get it scanned to see which sensor it COULD be
The auxiliary post is to the right of the air box, between the cruise control unit and the washer fluid. It has the red cap on it. Take that cap off, and youll see the copper nut Im talking about.
aux post: while a good suggestion that would have probably been overlooked, chances are much better that the hub is shot, or the connection on the wheel side sensor is corroded. The computer that controls them almost never goes bad, but gm hubs lick my nuts.
Some GM hubs are not bad at all, but the ones on the W-body’s are horrible. Ive had this happen to me, that was the only reason why I suggested it. But well see what it turns out to be… maybe…
well, ok i fudged that a bit, this is a shop I never went back to for this reason. It went in for this problem took them 3weeks to get it back to me. They did a bunch of work that I never wanted done ( at least not by a shop) replaced alternator, new fuel pump, ordered this brake control board, and installed it. All of this was supposedly warranted by being on the phone with GM engineers because they couldnt figure it out.
This was also my only car at the time and was having electrical problems (hence the alternator). I thought the brake light and battery light and the other general problems were related. so I didnt actually pay $1000 for just the brake light.
Well you can Take off at least $700 for the fuel pump and Alt. … thats the normal going rate for that job on a 97-99 W-body … (pump alone is $300 without labor) …
You should try checking under the fuse/Relay box located next to the washer bottle … you MOST LIKELY have a bunch of corroded terminals under there … that is also where the main ABS relay is
It would be extremely rare for the modules to go bad. Probably just a bad/corroded connection. Or a faulty sensor. Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t there a way to pull “codes” from the ABS system?
you can pull codes with a system like snap on’s “modis” more then likley its your wheel barings. they are like 70 bucks from napa for each side. and are very easy to do.
