95 Legacy ABS Strange Issue

The ABS light went on last Saturday, then when the car was stopped, the Nippon hydrolic unit in the front left of the engine compartment kept buzzing. I left the car out and the buzzing stopped whent the battery ran dead. I tried disabling by pulling the 2 fuses which claimed to have something to do with ABS, but that didn't stop it.

Anyway, I charge the battery up all day on Sunday, then took the car to the shop on Monday. ABS worked fine, no light, checked out fine, and so did the battery. Subaru mechanic suggested that sometimes when voltage falls below 12 the ABS will act out. Never happened before in 10 years of ownership.

Everything worked fine until this morning (another Saturday, of course) when the light went on and the buzzing started again. I pulled it in the garage and this time disconnected the battery, which stopped the buzzing. After awhile I hooked up the battery and there's no buzzing, so I'm topping it off and we'll see.

We did get 14 inches of snow this week, and the Sub has been sitting out (about 5 avbove zero this morning) and there was a ton of snow in the wheel wells this morning.

Has anyone run in to this issue?

Any ideas on the source of the problem or a fix?

Reply to
M Daly
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Hi M...

Yes, I've been running into this issue for a couple of years with my old '92 Subaru Legacy Turbo. Sometimes under wet conditions or high moisture or a lot of ABS working in snowy conditions, it started with the same symptoms you describe: ABS warning light, ABS stopped working (wheels lock) and the hydraulic unit from the ABS kept buzzing. I found out that it seemed to be a slack joint or some sort of loose contact. Whenever I disconnected the ABS in the engine compartment (NOT by the fuses, though!), it stopped buzzing and started again when reconnected.

Here is the hard way solution: A small slap or stroke on the ABS box with a hard item (back of a screwdriver or something similar) while the buzzing was going on (i.e. while connected) helped always with me, the buzzing stopped and returned only a couple of weeks / monts afterwards.

I now own a '94 Legacy Turbo that hasn't got this problem

Hope that helps

Mike

Reply to
Michael Szoenyi

Reply to
Robert L Wilson

yip its that silly relay failure again. its quite a common problem the relay get stuck on the ON position, either during the startup test or during an emergency stop. The relay is located under the black cover you can pull it out & your brakes will still work but your ABS won't.

Reply to
mike

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