300 Tdi Disco - ABS

Not been on for a while but hello again.

On occasion the ABS cuts in at low speed when braking when it probably shouldn't be. When it happens the pedal is a lot higher up than when the brakes kick in, you usually have to depress the pedal a fair bit when braking but this intermittent ABS thing happens quite high up (I hope that makes sense).

I'm hoping something like cleaning an ABS sensor? Has anyone experienced a similar problem?

Also just out of interest is it only my disco where you have the brake pedal a good bit down before you feel the brakes or am I driving a death trap? I had pretty much only driven my disco since I started to drive but now I've been a few other cars it seems peculiar.

Planning to do discs and pads in the next couple of weeks regardless. Vented or solid discs? I'll do a search for that though.

Vented.

No idea as to your ABS though, my problem was that the sensor on the passenger side was ****ed so the light stayed on all the time and it kept underbraking or locking up which was **** scary trying to slow down when coming off the motorway

£60 for a new sensor fixed that, think it was £119 inc labor n vat

Thought all 300's were solid discs, as i changed mine to the 110 with vented discs and bigger callipers for a little more than buying the standard stuff

over time the sensor can move up out of its hole as the clip holding it just becomes old and not as good
get a spanner and push down on top of the sensor to see if it clips back in the clips are cheap and easy to replace if needed
when you do your breaks go a little bit further and strip the hub right down and replace the grease in the swivel housing
take it all out but it back together again with no grease and when its done pour about 30ml of gear oil in through the access hole in front of the sensor
sometime the grease builds up on the shaft making contact on the sensor
if you do need to change the sensor it is easy enough you pop it out and the wire runs up into the wing where it is plugged in so just unplug and swap
if you have a choice of vented or solid go vented but the solid ones are good enough its a budget and are you doing anything extreme kind of choice but the vented are better
good luck

StuRox said:

Thought all 300's were solid discs, as i changed mine to the 110 with vented discs and bigger callipers for a little more than buying the standard stuff

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ES model is vented

Vented on road, solid off road.

And yes my pedal is fairly low down before anything really happens, ok its a 200 but the brakes are spot on and it has braided lines.

If your brakes work then it's probably ok, abs is a different issue obviously.

Cheers

Dr_evil said:

ES model is vented

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My one wasn't, I'm rebuilding the front end so fitting vented and new calipers, had brake fade once and nearly shat myself

Dr_evil said:

ES model is vented

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Yep it's a late (98 on an S plate) ES.

Having no joy installing microcat on 64 bit windows to check the exact part numbers though :mad2:

Damn yours is younger than mine

I'm Aug 98 I think on an R (ES too)

I wonder why they bothered fitting the new brake setup to a car that was about to finish?

Unless it was new regulation?

Or the axle was being fitted to a 110 and they thought they might aswell sling it on the disco too!

That said we've got a 98S 300tdi 110 at work and I'm pretty sure it's got solid up front!

Keep us posted on your progress.
Mine is doing the same. ABS kicking in at low speeds. Its great fun when approaching a T junction with traffic coming from both directions.

Personally I would like to remove the whole system. When the light is on I have confidence in stopping, but when its off you never know when the ABS will kick in (which then massively increasing my stopping distance).

BTW - Mine is a R reg June 98 ES and has solid discs.

finallysnapped said:

Not been on for a while but hello again.

On occasion the ABS cuts in at low speed when braking when it probably shouldn't be. When it happens the pedal is a lot higher up than when the brakes kick in, you usually have to depress the pedal a fair bit when braking but this intermittent ABS thing happens quite high up (I hope that makes sense).

I'm hoping something like cleaning an ABS sensor? Has anyone experienced a similar problem?

Also just out of interest is it only my disco where you have the brake pedal a good bit down before you feel the brakes or am I driving a death trap? I had pretty much only driven my disco since I started to drive but now I've been a few other cars it seems peculiar.

Planning to do discs and pads in the next couple of weeks regardless. Vented or solid discs? I'll do a search for that though.

Click to expand...

I had exact same problem, i have '94 ES model. all i did was take out the front sensors give them a good clean, re seat them properly and it cured its self. i got the problem once recently but i just tapped the sensor back down and its been perfect. helped me out a lot when i skidded in the wet with my bloody offroad tyres on.

so my advice.
Take each sensor out and clean it
Then Reseat it properly
take for a test run

if that doesnt cure it then your ABS ECU may be FUBAR as mine was.

Mine are solid as well, just checked so will be replacing them with the same, not in the mood for messing with calipers and all that jazz.

The ABS problem is happening more often so I really can't wait to get the time to get in and get this all sorted (hopefully).

finallysnapped said:

Mine are solid as well, just checked so will be replacing them with the same, not in the mood for messing with calipers and all that jazz.

The ABS problem is happening more often so I really can't wait to get the time to get in and get this all sorted (hopefully).

Click to expand...

just pull the plug on the ECU until then, under the glove box on the passenger side, just above the relays. that way it wont cut in at all and just leave you with normal brakes. i did that for about a month while figuring it out