Pulling fuse to ABS unit

[Gentle Ben]

If the ABS is suspecting to be causing braking anomalies I've been told pulling the fuse to it should show up whether it's at fault or not (anomalies will disappear)

Can anyone confirm or deny this... or more to the point entertain me about the potential dangers resulting from driving a car with the ABS disabled in this way.

 

[Chris H]

is this your juddering problem due to disc runout that your trying to sort even though I already told you what the problem was when I was in the car for 10 seconds?

 

[Gentle Ben]

No, so don't get the hump. Braking was related to the egg-shaped wheel, cos I inadvertently bent the wheel back into shape and it don't judder anymore.

The issue I've got is every now and again the pedal will go very stiff and you'll press it and there's very little effort. 5 mins later you can press it, it'll have more play in it and it'll stop on a sixpence. I thought master cylinder at first but have been told that faults with the ABS units are not uncommon on the Vectra's.

Pulling the fuse to it was one way I've been told of helping to diagnose if it's the culprit or not

 

[Chris H]

pull it the solenoids stay open and th elights on.

So the wheels will lock up and thats about it.

 

[Gentle Ben]

Ah well that's another billy bullshitter at large then.

Either way the problems to do with the hydraulics because when the brakes work they're very sharp and balanced so I doubt it's the friction side at fault.

Also, on the subject of brakes I can't remember if you noticed the poor handbrake the Vectra's got. If you put it on hard it's generally not a problem unless on a steep slope but not ideal.

Have noticed that I can't pull off with the handbrake on but I can reverse no problem.... does this tell you anything that it doesn't tell me? On that observation is it more likely to be cable-related or to do with the brake components themselves?

 

[tracklogic]

Ah well that's another billy bullshitter at large then.

Either way the problems to do with the hydraulics because when the brakes work they're very sharp and balanced so I doubt it's the friction side at fault.

Also, on the subject of brakes I can't remember if you noticed the poor handbrake the Vectra's got. If you put it on hard it's generally not a problem unless on a steep slope but not ideal.

Have noticed that I can't pull off with the handbrake on but I can reverse no problem.... does this tell you anything that it doesn't tell me? On that observation is it more likely to be cable-related or to do with the brake components themselves?

Hi Ben

The brakes will work regardless of the direction of the wheel. Youll probably find that reverse gear has more torque than your setting off (1st gear) and this is why you are able to reverse the car with the handbrake on but not go forward.

Doesn't sound like an ABS fault to me, because as far as I am aware the ABS will only kick in when it detects one wheel is spinning a lot slower than the other one on the same axle. What it does then is to release the pressure to that specific wheel and then quickly reapply pressure to allow the wheel to spin round slightly, removing the "locked" wheel condition.

What sort of state is the brake fluid in? I'm just wondering if its something simple like the fluids boiling - maybe try a fluid flush? It seems odd to me that it comes and goes, I had the same symptom once when the vacuum hose split to the MBC (of course I'd lost braking assistance) and the car was incredibly hard to pull up. But this doesn't make sense in your case because its an intermittent fault!

 

[Gentle Ben]

Don't get me wrong it's only very occassional problem - probably 99% of the time the brakes are spot on but the but sods' law says the one time the brakes effort disappears is the time I really need my brakes to work!

Intermittent loss of effort coupled with no fluid loss to me suggests faulty seals somewhere, first inkling was the BMC as I had same problem on the 19 and a new one sorted it but then someone reminded me about the ABS (Vectra is first car I've had with ABS)

 

[Chris H]

1st gear has more torque than reverse.

brakes will need sdeen to to sort the handbrake issue.

anyone else not have fun with full speed pug reverse runs then slamming on the brakes to get the rear self adjusters working?

the abs could be causing the fault but its rare, like I said the bosch units are decent but they can and do fail, sometimes the solenoids drop on a circuit pedal solid but only half effort.

it could be a brake hose as well.

 

[Gentle Ben]

Aye yeah, if the weather improves over the Christmas brakes I'll get the wheels off and give everything a good look over.

Just as long as it's not shitty Bendix ABS then I'll feel better. Bosch ABS seems to get much better write-ups over Bendix.