Thread: ABDS/TCS gremlins

So as I am driving in this marvelous winter wonderland (snowy Michigan) the car is having no issues, traction control and ABS work fine, snow slush, water nothing is stopping me, but as soon as the speed gets over about 53 MPH the ABS, trac off, and SVS lights all come on.

Now I stop the car turn it of, and all is well again everything works, no lights, but as soon as I get over about 53 the lights are all on again.

I thought it would be something gettting wet, but that would be any speed, not something getting hot but cause it wouldn't be speed dependent.
I have put a new hub on the car about 3 months ago, but the issue only comes up when it is crummy weather, when dry out I can run all day long and no worries, but if it gets sloppy out and over 53 or so, the lights come on.

Any ideas? Nothing like having so ABS when you really need it....

possibly moisture in the ABS Module? I have never encountered that problem before....

Originally Posted by crashman

Well I'm having a simular problem, with out the moisture. Turns out to be the left front speed sensor. The damn thing only has 23,000 miles on it, ..........but whata gone tda do??? gotta replace it I DON'T want to be with out ABS!!
I agree about the serviceability of these hubs. Ihad a 95 Riviera that had over 200,000 miles on it with the original front hubs!!!!

How did you determine it to be the front hub? Yeah I went to work today, and no issues, and I even drove through puddles. This is really getting me tweaked....I so miss not having to mess, my last car had no ABS or Traction control, unless you count the computer behind the wheel, and it did just fine.

Hey, I am having a similar problem right now. But mine is not speed dependent, but more just whenever it feels like it.

With my car, I can drive it fine most of the time. But if I try to take off hard, sometimes the ABS light will come on. Not sure if it is worth it yet to replace the entire hub (new only a year or so ago) just so the ABS light doesn't come on every now and then? I probably will.

As for figuring out which one is bad, I was able to borrow a Snap On scanner and retrieved C1225 code from it. I made a post about my issues here. Other than with a scanner, I don't know of any other way to figure out which hub is bad for sure.

Originally Posted by crashman

My son-in-law has a shop and he has a new "Snap on" tester that can read the ABS codes. He hooked it up and and gave it a test drive a few times. Each time it came back as a "speed sensor failure".

Not sure what that means. But with that note, I would double check all the wiring. I would make sure the connections are clean and good. Maybe clean them with electrical cleaner or something. Also, something else I did was check the resistance of each sensor and wires. All were about the same ~1050 ohms. But check yours and see if you get similar readings. Most of the time, from what I know, replacing the entire hub will take care of the problem.

An easy way to test the wheel speed sensor is as follows:

You will need an electrical tester capable of measuring ohms resistance. Most multimeters have a setting for this, usually signified by an Omega symbol just in case you didn't know.

Place the front of your car on jackstands so that both front wheels are off the ground. You will end up needing to rotate the hubs which you can't do with only one tire off the ground.

Remove the wheel on the side you want to test (maybe not 100% necessary, but it will give you a lot more room)

Unplug the wire connection to the hub assembly.

Now connect the two leads from your ohm meter, or multimeter set to ohms, to the two pins inside the connector of the hub. These need to be connected to the wires from the hub itself, not on the side coming from the car. One lead on each pin, doesn't matter which way since we are only measuring resistance. Since my multimeter has probe ends, I use a couple small wires with a small alligator clip on each end so that I can connect the probes to the pins without having to hold them, freeing my hands up for the next step.

With your meter hooked up, turn that the hub slowly (just grab the brake rotor and turn). On a correctly functioning speed sensor, you will see the ohms reading go up and down, up and down as you turn the hub. The sensor is basically a magnet sitting close to a toothed wheel inside the hub. Everytime a tooth on the wheel passes the magnet, the resistance reading should change. Your car monitors these changes in resistance to detect wheel speed. It's nothing you can see, since ours are built into our hub assemblies, but you will see the changes on the ohm meter on a correctly functioning sensor.

If your meter shows an open circuit or the ohm reading does not go up and down in value as you turn the wheel, then there is a problem with the sensor. Now keep in mind that we are testing it at the plug, so you could have an issue with a broken wire leading to the hub. You can strip back just a small portion of the wire insulation close to where it enters the hub assembly and test for continuity from the plug to the hub to make sure it's not a broken wire. They are okay to splice if you do find a break, but kinda difficult since the wires are only about 3-4" long.

Abrasive, that is a fine write up there. Is there any chance I could convince you to do that test and take some pictures? I dont suppose it absolutely necessary, but Im a detail fanatic so while I can follow your directions just fine, if some pictures accompanied it, it would be a fantastic troubleshooting process.

No hurry or anything if you decide to do it, just asking at this point. If I had known about this I could have done it yesterday when I was changing out my CPS.

Originally Posted by SyntheticShield

Abrasive, that is a fine write up there. Is there any chance I could convince you to do that test and take some pictures? I dont suppose it absolutely necessary, but Im a detail fanatic so while I can follow your directions just fine, if some pictures accompanied it, it would be a fantastic troubleshooting process.

No hurry or anything if you decide to do it, just asking at this point. If I had known about this I could have done it yesterday when I was changing out my CPS.

Sure, easy to do next time I have a wheel off.

Abrasive...

Nice description of testing this. And I haven't done it yet, but the problem I have from my thread here is that I am getting a code of C1225 Excessive LF Wheel Acceleration. So my wheel speed sensor is working fine (I assume), just reading faster than the other wheels. So I am assuming that a new hub will fix this, but I have no idea...any help?

I tell you what, if I had the money to do so, I would offer a reward to the first community member that could come up with a reliable Wheel bearing and still maintain the speed sensor. It just really seems something better can be done here.

I know you addressed Abrasive, but let me throw in my 0.02 worth. If you have access to the Scan tool that can read ABS still, swap the hubs and see if the issue follows. If it does, you just need to find a new hub or I suppose you could get a used one from Ed Morad.

Originally Posted by Zef_66

Abrasive...

Nice description of testing this. And I haven't done it yet, but the problem I have from my thread here is that I am getting a code of C1225 Excessive LF Wheel Acceleration. So my wheel speed sensor is working fine (I assume), just reading faster than the other wheels. So I am assuming that a new hub will fix this, but I have no idea...any help?

Well, I'm not 100% sure on this one but... I do know that it is possible for wheel speed sensor to also read an unusually high amount of resistance when it goes bad. Also, like I mentioned before, the resistance should fluctuate up and down on a good sensor. If a wire or circuit comes apart internally, it will read as an open circuit, so I'm not taking that into consideration here. So, if the resistance reads unusually high or the sensor "sticks" at the high reistance side of it's fluctuation, then I suppose the car could interpret that high or constant resistance as the wheel is still turning at a high rate of speed. It would think the teeth on the internal wheel were still passing the magnet at a high velocity causing the more constant resistance.

This of course, is completely a guess.

hope all goes well with that!