Intermittent ABS light

[Galaxie500XL]

I've not had previous problems with my '95 Cutlass ABS, but over the past couple of weeks, the ABS light will occasionally light.

 

Shutdown and restart eliminates the light, sometimes for hours, sometimes for days...but I've yet to find any obvious problems.

 

Bought new tires for the rear a couple of days before...could the tire guy have messed up something not obviously visible?

[rich_e777]

I got a `94 coupe and had the same problem after sliding around on some ice earlier this year and ppl were telling me it was a speed? sensor on the wheel that might have gotten damaged or dirty or loose etc. Id check you connections down there. Shouldn`t be hard to find just follow the wires and you should see the clip.

[Mel87]

I had a 95 as well before. My ABS light and Parking Brake light would stay on all the time. It ended up being the ABS sensor module that was bad. I never fixed it. But as Rich said, it could be a sensor on one of the wheels. As far as diagnosing which one I am not sure.

[virtuetovice]

Check the wire going to the senor. If it's damaged, it can rub against the metal parts of the suspension and ground out, causing the ABS to think something's wrong.

[Cutlass350]

I'm not sure about a 95 Cutlass. You should be able to use a cheap scanner. But note, GM and Olds were very f***ed up in the mid 90's (what else is new ). So, the car may have a very rare GM protocol - like the 92-95 Olds Achieva.

 

Otherwise, you're likely wasting your time, money, effort to hunt down a real ABS problem.

 

One thing to check, ABS requires that all four tires have the same DIAMETER to within a small percentage.

Note, I said "diameter" - not "tire size".

A tire size is the same as a pant's size or a dress size. Sorry, those sites/articles that talk about tire diameter and tire size have zero clue about the real world. And, they clearly have never ever read a tire manufacture's spec, or checked different tires at tirerack. Heck, between model years, even Blizzak changed the diameter a little on my 245/45/17 tires for my other car. Argg!

 

So:

1) First check the air pressure in all four tires.

2) If you have new/old tires, or different sizes/models, you may have problems. Most "real" tire places will only replace all 4 tires at the same time on a car with ABS/TC/ etc. That's because that's what the car manufacture requires/specifies.

3) See if you can get an ABS scanner for your car, model year, and engine.

 

If you get a code, post it. It's not hard or expensive to fix stuff on a Delco-IV ABS system. Of course, "expensive" is a relative term to many people.

 

On my Achieva, the ABS unit went. It went from working most of the time -> some of the time -> never. I confirmed that was the problem with an ~$500 OTC scanner.

 

Below, you can see how the LF motor is showing a current feedback even though the commanded current is zero.

Good Luck!