The other day drove over some rough road for just a few feet and then a few seconds later the ABS lite came on and the display showed DCS System Fault.

Drove for another 20 minutes with both on, so finally was able to pull-over and shut engine off for 20 seconds. Upon restart everything was fine (as I suspected would be), drove another 1.5 hours with no problems.

So the rough road caused this, but what is the problem: dirty connection, sensor going out, ???

I do not have a scan tool that will talk to the ABS module.

Suggestions?

Thanks

 

The same thing happens to mine. When the ABS fails, it automatically fails the other. I suspect it is a small break in the sensor wiring, but do not have a way to test all 4 sensors, nor the finances to replace them. I am thinking of maybe putting a couple twists in the sensor wires, one at a time, until I find the one, that won't shut off the light after restarting, and driving a block. Right now I am just turning off the warning with the clear button, and driving around with the yellow light on. It's a little annoying, but it hasn't pissed me off enough yet to do much about it. I may even put a little twist to the male plug contacts, for a better connection. I will be watching this post with you.....Be cool....Mike

 

You could get the code read and find out, quite cheaply.

 

Could be a break in a wire, loose connection, or a crack in a solder joint...somewhere that the rough road caused the connection to break long enough for the system to see it and throw out the failure.

Yeah I will probably get the code read, but nothing is cheap at my Jag dealer/service.

Odd thing is; my Chevy Blazer is also throwing an intermittent ABS failure...I think the two have been talking and are plotting against my bank account balance......

 

First things first - if you have not done so, clean all four wheel speed sensors. Reverend Sam's video shows you exactly how to do this. All you need is an old toothbrush, some dish soap, and a small bowl. I scrub my wife's XK8's wheel speed sensors every time I rotate the tires at 6,000-mile intervals. It adds an extra 15 minutes to the job. She's seen no spurious ABS or DSC fault messages since I began this routine. Well worth the time and effort....

 

Sounds like a dirty connector. A scan read would tell you which sensor(s) are causing the problem, but in the absence of one of those you should should clean each wheel's ABS sensor connector in turn (good preventative maintenance anyway).

Pull the superseal connectors apart and squirt some electrical cleaner into both the plug and socket. Next, use a small pin or needle to give the inside of the socket's contacts a good scratching. You can often see green on the metal, a sure sign of copper corrosion.
Connect/disconnect the connectors a few times to allow the cleaner to work.

 

I will get busy this weekend and clean all four wheel sensors. Failures have not returned since I cycled ignition last weekend on our trip home. Keeping figers crossed.

Thanks for the replies.

 

FWIW, the exact same scenario happened to me too. I ended up doing the sensor cleaning routine as others have described. Depending on the design of the wheel, you are going to have to get the wheels off the car to do this job. This is a great opportunity to purge/flush/bleed the hydraulic part of the brake system. The nipple is right there, and, in the best case, you get to flush out any trapped air. Re-check the tire pressure, too.

Since I did this procedure, the brake feel has been night and day (car feels lighter and much more controllable), and the errors have not come back.

I guess my point is that errors in the high tech part of the system does not rule out a root cause in the low tech part. Best of luck.

 

Good idea. It has been quite sometime since I flushed the brake fluid...good time to do it since I am going to be there anyways.

Thanks for the suggestion.

 

Hi Guys

I joined the forum simply to add my experiences here as I've gleaned a lot of information through the forum and thought it was time to give a bit back.

My 2004 XK8 has had the ABS and DSC system fault warnings appearing intermittently for a few months now, recently the warnings started to appear far more frequently and I felt it was time to address them.

I first removed the wheels and cleaned the speed sensors as per instructions from the forum and Youtube.

I then suspected the common dry solder joint problem in the control module and thought about removing it, as this is likely to involve separating the brake lines I decided against it and thought I would get a mechanic to read the fault codes from the car for me to ascertain if it was indeed a module fault.

The local mechanic read the codes and pin-pointed the problem. One of the rear speed sensor rotor rings that are attached to the drive shaft was heavily corroded and no longer providing a signal to the wheel speed sensor.

Removal involved oxy acetalene cutting to split the ring so was a little involved but total cost for parts and labour was just over £200 and all has been well for sometime now.

I hope this info may be of help to someone sometime.

Paul