Check Abs System

[Manlord]

Where do I begin with the day I have just had

Well it started at 7am with a phonecall from my wife saying the car I had just fixed had grinded to a halt 30 minutes from our home.

Ok so I sort the kids and go over to her where she tells me the car just kept braking or what felt like driving with the handbrake up.

I tried to drive the car off but it was jammed solid so I thought the ABS switch I had just put in had fixed the ABS but the fact that she needed brake pads was now causing the car to stop.

I then also thought that if there was literally no pads left she may have essentially welded the metal of the pad to the disk and now that it had cooled it was almost impossible to fix.

I decided to put the old switch in and the car drove off nice and smooth but with the ABS light on and no rear LED tail light.

It didnt make any sense so I put the new switch back in and the car jammed again??????? I figured that because the switch was a contact switch I may have inserted it into the holder too far by !Removed! it to its tightest position. I undid this and screwed it into place at its lowest position until the LED light came on. This worked a treat as the car pulled away nice and easy but the ABS light stayed off. Thank God

ANSWER: The new switch needs to be screwed to a certain position to satisfy the ABS system and not trigger the brakes.

I decided to change the discs & pads today so I gave my missus a lift to work and went to my job where I was going to pick up the parts later in the day and fit them tonight. I collected parts at 4pm and went around different places to get copper grease, wire brush, axel stands etc etc.

I took off the wheels and put the car on the stands and proceeded to take off the calipers and found almost no pad left. Maybe 0.3mm of pad if she was lucky. I took the pads out and dropped the rear pad by accident and it cracked off the floor. It was only a hairline crack but didnt worry me as they were shot anyway. I opened the box of new pads only to see a completely different shape pad Now I'm thinking F**k! :ffs:

The parts shop is closed, Ive a cracked pad which cannot be used and no way to get home as everyone is gone since 6pm.

I sat there in quite an angry mood and lets just say that some of the wheel nuts were bounced off the wall. Will have to find them tomorrow too

I had to get a taxi home and will now have to arrange a taxi to work for myself & the missus tomorrow. I will tear the head off the sales dept in this online parts superstore tomorrow and will then go about getting the correct parts and doing the job tomorrow.

Rant over! :ffs:

[IanXT4]

Hi sorry to hear you had such a bad day.

I am kind of surprised that just a poorly adjusted brake switch would cause the brakes to switch/jam on ?

Usually engineers design brake systems for all normal fault modes of the sensors and switches. Even with a badly adjusted/broken switch I would of expected the ABS to disable itself, leave you with normal non ABS brakes and flag an error (ie visit garage to have it fixed) rather than jam on and potentially cause an accident.

I would seriously check that the new switch you have fitted works electrically exactly the same as the original, something "maybe" wrong. (Ie Does the switch have the correct orientation of open or close switches inside).

Its worth double checking everything or you could end up burning out another set of pads ?

[Bezzer]

The last thing I would like to say is that Mick told me lies about how to fit it. He said 30 minutes. It does not take 30 minutes. it takes 8 minutes

Yebbut I ironed out the mistakes you would have also made like not removing the bottom panel first and trying to "unbolt" the switch

I did my front brake discs and pads a month or two back as they were pulsing, dead easy if you follow the how to. Mintex discs and pads from fleabay around £100 and been fine, better than the mismatched OE ones.

[xog]

Thanks for this topic and all who posted.

My rav4 has had the very same problems, I'd previously been looking at the abs sensors as the problem, I took them out and cleaned them, with no difference.

Then I found the topic here and it turns out it was the brake pedal switch.

Thanks again to all.