Had just picked the car up from the dealership after having the coolant and inverter coolant changed. Picked up three kids from school. The ABS light came on. Only had the car about 2 weeks, first time I have had this much weight in the car. Next day with only one person in the car the light went off. Any suggestions? This is a classic with 58K miles.
When ABS light comes on, it is usually the sensors (cheaper to fix) or the pump (expensive to fix). Since it went away, I am guessing it is the sensors that is going bad. Wait a few days to see what happens. If nothing, it may be just false alarm. Anyway, w/o ABS, you still got regular braking. Just slow down. In worst case, the ABS pump assembly usually costs about $2000 to fix. I heard a guy who rebuild ABS unit for around $400 (heard on BMW forum). If it should come to that, drop me a mail. I will dig it out for you.
Also check your brake lights and the high-mount stop light to see if you have a blown bulb or a short in the brake light wiring (yes, this can actually cause the ABS light to come on, but only in a freakishly rare situation).. What happened on my Classic is that a bulb failed and the broken filament just happened to short across some of the other wires in the bulb (as I said, freakishly rare) and because of this whenever I turned on the headlights (which also turned on the rear marker lights, causing voltage to appear on the brake light wire when the brake pedal was not depressed), the ABS and brake warning light came on and I'd lose regenerative braking.. This did not generate any codes, and normal engine-running regen still worked, just not while braking, andt t actually took me a while to figure this one out because if I had my headlights off (such as during the day), it was just fine, and I didn't immediately associate it with the headlights because even at night, I usually start the car with headlights off, hit the brake, turn on the headlights, and then shift into gear, so when I first turned on the headlights, the brake was also on, and everything was kosher, but as soon as I took my foot off the brake, the warning lights would come on after a few seconds, so the condition seemed to be associated with driving vs. the lights.. I surmise that Toyota must monitor the brake light output and the actual brakes for consistency but probably did not anticipate that a short in the light bulb could turn the output into an input and trigger basically what was a superfluous warning.. I'm glad I didn't bring this one to the dealer right away because this one of those ones where they could have replaced the whole braking system and all the ECUs without resolving the problem, which was a $2.50 light bulb...
