ABS warning light on Ford Focus

artvanderlay

Hello,


I have a 2004 Ford Focus zetec 1.6 and recently the abs light has started flashing at random times. I went to the garage, and he ran diagnostics on it but couldn't find anything up. The mechanic said that there was nothing obviously wrong with it so it should be fine to drive. Now it did stop flashing for a couple of days but has come back again, and I'm a bit worried as will be doing a lot of driving in the next month. Has anyone had any experience like this? Any advice on what else I should do ?
Thanks a lot

martinr5232

The fault needs to be diagnosed maybe try bringing the car in when the light is on and dont switch the ignition off till the codes are read.

Even if your abs light is on you still have brakes its just an extra safety feature added just try to avoid any heavy braking.

artvanderlay

martinr5232 wrote: »

The fault needs to be diagnosed maybe try bringing the car in when the light is on and dont switch the ignition off till the codes are read.

Even if your abs light is on you still have brakes its just an extra safety feature added just try to avoid any heavy braking.

Cool i'll try that. The last time I brought it in the abs light didn't come on at all for the mechanic. In general it just occasionally flashes but I'll keep an eye for when it stays on fully and bring the car in then.

Thanks.

artvanderlay

An update on this: the abs warning light went off and stayed off for a while...then I noticed I started getting the red warning light for the brake system. The brakes themselves are working fine, so I had a look under the bonnet, brake fluid was ok, but I noticed that the power steering fluid was a bit low, so topped that up, and then there were no warning lights for a few days. However, yesterday I was driving up from the west and the red brake system light came on again...I pulled in for a few minutes, started up again, no warning light but then it came on again after around half an hour. This time I said f*ck it and just drove with it on to see what would happen..it went off after a few minutes of driving and didn't come back at all during another 2 hours of continuous driving.

My question is now: what should I do? Obviously I don't want warning/red lights on when I am driving but nothing is showing up in the garage when I get it checked, so is it possible that it's just a slight electronic fault that's causing the lights to flash, or is there anything I'm missing here?

martinr5232

What light is it ?? Handbrake light ??

artvanderlay

Yeah, it's the handbrake light. Sorry, should have been clearer.

martinr5232

Either handbrake switch is faulty or the levelswitch in the brake fluid resevouir is acting up.
More than likely handbrake though.

dr.fuzzenstein

Get a €5 bluetooth OBD dongle and download Forscan (free) to your smart phone (will have to be android), this will allow you to diagnose just about any fault (including ABS) your Ford can throw at you and not just codes, but in clear text exactly what is going wrong.
I had an ABS light on, it was one of the wheel sensors, they are cheap and you can replace them yourself, even if it's a bit of a PITA.
If you ever see a warning light or error message on your dash, take very careful not of it, this info is invaluable when trying to diagnose over the internet and you don't want to take chances with your brakes.

Waterson

Some scantools will only access the generic codes and not manufacturer specific ones stored in the ABS module memory. If you have a warning light up, you will have a code stored...its within the parameters of the programming. Perhaps the garage you are using do not have the software to access your abs module fully?

dr.fuzzenstein

Waterson wrote: »

Some scantools will only access the generic codes and not manufacturer specific ones stored in the ABS module memory. If you have a warning light up, you will have a code stored...its within the parameters of the programming. Perhaps the garage you are using do not have the software to access your abs module fully?

Part of the reason I suggested the unfortunately named Forscan, it will read Ford ABS error codes and not only give you the code but the clear text explanation. All you need for it is a smartphone or laptop with Bluetooth and a €5 Bluetooth OBD adapter. This is cheaper than getting codes read at any garage.

James Forde

This happened me recently.

Abs light coming on every now & again, then one morning handbrake light comes on & battery light warning too.

Car lost all power and died on its arse at the top of a roundabout, typical.

Turned out it was the Alternator that was the problem, had to get it re-conditioned.

Ford Focus 1.6

artvanderlay

Thanks for the replies lads. There's a few things there I'll look into...i'm actually bringing the car into the garage tomorrow to let them have another look at it. I will mention to them about having a look at the alternator too, but is that something they can see easy enough if there is something wrong with it?

@Dr. Fuzzenstein...thanks for the tip. Do you know anywhere I can get that OPD dongle for €5 in Dublin? I had a look at amazon.co.uk...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=opd+bluetooth&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Aopd+bluetooth

any one of those in particular you would recommend?

Thanks a mill!

martinr5232

There is no point going in telling them its an abs light when its a handbrake light thats coming on.
No diagnostic tester is going to come up with a fault for that light.

artvanderlay

Oh no, I am going to tell them about the handbrake warning light. That's more worrying than the abs light at this stage.

dr.fuzzenstein

artvanderlay wrote: »

Thanks for the replies lads. There's a few things there I'll look into...i'm actually bringing the car into the garage tomorrow to let them have another look at it. I will mention to them about having a look at the alternator too, but is that something they can see easy enough if there is something wrong with it?

@Dr. Fuzzenstein...thanks for the tip. Do you know anywhere I can get that OPD dongle for €5 in Dublin? I had a look at amazon.co.uk...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=opd+bluetooth&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Aopd+bluetooth

any one of those in particular you would recommend?

Thanks a mill!

No idea where you might get them in a shop, I went with something like this:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/super-Bluetooth-Scanner-TORQUE-ANDROID/dp/B00S49USQK/ref=sr_1_sc_4/280-7843419-9711057?ie=UTF8&qid=1450340483&sr=8-4-spell&keywords=opd+bluetooth
OK, it won't ever be €5, but these things are fairly reasonable.
It works with my phone and the Forscan app as well as my laptop (you may need a Bluetooth adapter) and it was able to tell me that the problem was with the right ABS rear sensor. They can be a pain to change, in the end I had to undo the shock at the bottom (only one screw) to move it out of the way. If it's really, really bad and you run into trouble, you may have to take off the wheel hub. Pray it won't come to that. Will you DIY it?

artvanderlay

No, I won't do it myself. I know sweet FA about cars unfortunately, but I would like to identify the fault myself so i can tell the garage exactly what they should be looking at.

I'd check the ABS sensors at each wheel for a start.

dr.fuzzenstein

artvanderlay wrote: »

No, I won't do it myself. I know sweet FA about cars unfortunately, but I would like to identify the fault myself so i can tell the garage exactly what they should be looking at.

Also you can catch the fault as it's happening.
When I first bought my car, it developed a fault within a week, but the fault kept coming and going. Ford themselves could not find the fault. I had to divert on my way home for them to plug in their laptop as it was happening. Only then could they read the fault, which led us to a hole in the air intake hose between the intercooler and the inlet manifold. I had gone there a few times before, but either the fault was not on the dash or I had switched the car off and it reset itself and didn't show anymore. Now if there is a fault I can whip out my dongle (wahey!), connect it to the phone and immediately see exactly what my car is complaining about. And considering what a dealer charges you to hook up their gear to your car, it's a no brainer. Even an indy garage (not a new style of music) will charge €20 to hook up, so you can't lose.