Help please. ABS light on and no brake lights working!!

[Rob Johnson]

Hi Folks,

Pretty much as per the title!

My ABS light has illuminated, brakes seem to be working fine but haven't been on anything with little enough traction to test that the ABS is working too.

Also discovered that both the stop lights and the high level stop light are not working. I haven't checked the bulbs yet as my thinking was that it was unlikely that all 3 had gone together. I have checked the 'STOP' fuse and it's fine and I have also checked the brake switch itself with a meter and it's working.

Any ideas, electrics are a dark and sinister thing to me!!

 

[Chris]

Isn't there a larger ABS fuse somewhere too? Memories of 90 series is growing dim, but likely to be one. Not your average 15amp blade thing. Next job is to do the diagnostic test using the port under the bonnet and short length of wire. But someone else will have to give you that detail I don't have a manual anymore.

Chris

 

[Rob Johnson]

Cheers Chris, I havent checked the 'big' fuse with a meter but visually it's fine!

I have some details on the diagnostic check using the wire but one question........................where is the port located?

 

[Chris]

It's under the bonnet somewhere. It's black with a flip top and has the word DIAGNOSTIC moulded into it. About the size of your thumb

Chris

 

[Rob Johnson]

Well........................

I went out to the LC with the intention of having another look at the lights/ABS.

It had stood for a couple of days. I started the car and ...........everything was fine?? ABS light out and brake lights working fine! It doesn't instill much confidence that it's not an intermittent fault that'll come back but I guess I'll just have to use it and keep an eye on it or is there anything more proactive I can do?

 

[Chris]

If you pulled the fuse, there is a good chance that this may have reset the fault. It happens. Do the jump wire trick in the diagnostics though, the code may still be stored.

Chris

 

[Euan McGilp]

May be a partially damaged fuse - I know it sounds odd but I recently had one on a Peugeot where the wipers worked but screen washer pump didn't (both circuits on same fuse). Visual inspection looked fine so ended up with RAC out (motability vehicle so can't touch it). On electrical test, it turned out to be the fuse which had overheated & partially melted causing resistance change. May be worth changing as a matter of course as well as cleaning contacts.

 

[Chas]

Fuses can be funny things, when I was an apprentice electrician I was working in a factory and had a dead machine to fix, it had an on board re-wirable 15a fuse which hadn't blown, got the meter out tested, no power, so went back to the local distribution board and checked that circuits 30a fuse, that was OK, but there was no power feeding that, went back to main distribution panel to find a 60a main fuse had blown, don't ask me how a 15a and a 30a were by-passed and a main 60a fuse blew, I'm still trying to work that out.