Carrera 993: ABD and ABS Captions

[MaxNg]

I've owned my 993 since the end of April - 1996 vintage with about 54,000 miles.

About 2 months ago, the ABD red caption and the ABS amber captions illuminated on start-up. I shut down, read the manual and then started again, in the hope that the captions would clear - which they did. The same event sequence happened again, about a month ago.

Today, however, the captions didn't clear after stopping/restarting a couple of times. I drove home cautiously, ever-conscious of the two captions lit on the dash, and closed down for lunch. However, on starting again, to put the car in the garage, the captions again had cleared. Started and stopped a couple more times and still OK. The car is driven pretty regularly, although on this occasion, it had been unused for 5 days.

Electrical Gremlins perhaps? However, any advice would be gratefully received.

Max

 

[p27549]

I had a similar issue a while back whilst car was not being used very often. Lights would come on after starting the engine and not go out until the car was driven a few miles. Once igntion switched off and on again the light would clear. I believe i have an issue with a wheel sensor, maybe worth having the ECU read to see if there are any fault codes. Since i have been using the car more the problem has gone away.
Cheers

TIM

 

[zwhitea]

We have had the same issue in the past. Which once the faults codes were read, identified which wheel sensor was damaged/faulty.
In all it only cost us about £120 to have a local indi repair it.. Worth just getting it fixed for peice of mind and if it happens in an MOT it will fail.

Adam.

 

[oxford_hippo]

Hi,

I had similar warning light issue ( fraid I can'r remember which light was coming on )

The cure was a replacement wheel speed sensor.

Indie fixed it, and I think GSF supply these sensors.

T[&:]

 

[vic cohen]

Do bear in mind while the red ABS light on, the ABS is nt working..........worse if its going on and off u dont know where u are !

 

[Mark Elder]

I've had similar experience (although it seems to have stopped happening and I have not changed anything) - but the point I was going to make is that I have a diagnostic reader and, if the light has cleared itself, the diagnostic reader seems not to be able to tell you the fault. So if you want your indie to know which wheel is causing it - drive straight there with the light on!

 

[MaxNg]

Thank you all for the replies.

However, since writing the post, the problem has not recurred. From the last response, it does indeed seem logical that a diagnostic kit won't be able to diagnose a fault whose evidence had gone away - as has mine once again.

Other that that, the car is going great and I plan to have the roof off tomorrow in the forecast morning of sunshine

 

[Pickled Piper]

I'm not sure what type of diagnostic kit you are using, however, even the intermittent faults are recorded in the ECU on the vehicle. The correct Bosch diagnostic tool will be able to read the stored fault code even if the warning light has extinguished.

pp

 

[JB 3.2]

My car had a similar problem, and the cause turned out to be the LED type rear light bulbs a previous owner had fitted. It looks like they were sending incorrect information (voltage/resistance) to the management system indicating a non existent fault.

 

[Mark Elder]

ORIGINAL: Pickled Piper

I'm not sure what type of diagnostic kit you are using, however, even the intermittent faults are recorded in the ECU on the vehicle. ....

It's the Durametric "USB cable" and software which introgates the ECU, but I agree the ECU should have stored the faults. But I now remember that another possible cause of not seeing the faults was that the car had been serviced between me seeing the fault lights and getting the Durametric kit - so could well have had the faults "reset" during the service.