Newbie scared witless with no brakes

Hi. Took the plunge and bought a 1997 300tdi XS at the weekend. (Thanks for previous buying advice). It's great. Had it 4 days and the ABS light came on(?) Brakes still work fine until I dropped my daughter off at Brownies tonight, set off again, came to a junction, pushed the brake pedal and had no brakes for a few seconds! Scared me senseless. The brake pedal vibrated like the ABS was working and then the brakes came back on again. After that they were fine but the ABS light is still on.

Any thoughts? (No ice or oil on the road and the tyres are good). Not keen on driving it if the brakes can disappear. Any advice on why the ABS light has come on? (Just serviced before I bought it). Is it ok to drive with the ABS light on? Please help settle my nerves. MarkJ

I know we all tend to ignore warning lights, but isn't that what they are for? I'm sure the handbook will stay stop and seek expert advise (I'm sure they don't mean Landyzone!) It's fine ignore warning lights if you know why they are on, but if its something like brakes and you don't know why.....

take it back to where you bought it maybe they knew something about it previous . I would be pretty upset if they had done it to me

I suppose you have checked the brake fluid level?

Hi,

I also had this happen to me with my 300TDI scare the living day lights out of me while coming up to a busy main juction in the road. After checking all the brakes it came down to one of the ABS sensors not sitting correctly in the front hub.They are easy to remove as they are only a push in fitment, remove the sensor and clean it and make sure it pushed all the way in correctly it sorted the problem out on mine it may be worth a try

Good to see I'm not alone. Can't believe such a small sensor can have such potentially dangerous effects!

I'll take them both out and clean them this weekend. Cheers.

MarkJ said:

Good to see I'm not alone. Can't believe such a small sensor can have such potentially dangerous effects!

I'll take them both out and clean them this weekend. Cheers.

Click to expand...

Had exactly the same fault on mine but only came on when I got newer biger tyres, strange, cleaning the sensors works a treat, but if that fails & you can't get to a garage for a few days to get it seen too just remove the fuse for the ABS under the dash, until its resolved. Not great long term but at least you'll have brakes albeit without ABS. No ABS better than no brakes.........

Most abs sensors are magnetic, small metal filings from brake pads/disc overtime tend to fall on/around the sensor. Now the sensor is clogged with metal it cannot determine where the toothed wheel is behind the disc. Cleaning them normaly sorts it, incidently it is not uncommon for these sensors to play up after visiting a tyre shop. The impact gun used to loosen/tighten the wheel nuts shakes aforementioned filings loose on to the sensor and Robert is your fathers brother.

regards

Dave