Have a question and all the searching has got me confused. On my 97 Z with the ASR option, The ABS keeps activating about every time I stop. Once every few months the ABS INOP comes on but generally I just hear the ABS in the hood and the brake pedal feedback while stopping. (Scary in rush-hour)

So my question is what wheel sensors are causing this? Are the 2 sensors on the front wheels giving the bad input on wheel spin or is it all 4 wheel sensors and/or a speed sensor somewhere near the middle of the rear axel?

Thanks I’m just all confused now

 

Have you done any brake work lately????? Might check connections; bleed the system first....

Could be low on fluid....

 

I have not done any new mechanical work to the brakes, but I did remove the rear wheels and clean up the sensors in the rear hub and check the wires.

And i checked the fluid level and the brakes have always worked great when the abs INOP has randomly came on.

 

Have the EBTCM scanned for codes by someone with a Tech-2. It will tell you what is turning on the "ABS INOP" light. You mentioned cleaning the sensors at the rear wheels, so it appears you have a 4-channel ABS + TCS system. The 4-channel system does not have a sensor on the differential like the 4-channel ABS only system.

I've seen a dirty sensor on the diff housing cause the ABS to activate in the last few feet of a mild stop, causing the stopping distance to increase quite a bit - sounds like what you are experiencing. But you don't have that sensor. Might be one of the others.

I'll move this to the "Suspension, Chassis and Brakes" forum.

 

This may sound stupid but are you sure none of your tires have worn unevenly and might be threadbare in a spot you can't see?

 

can also be caused by worn pads/rotors..

there was a time when my car would do the exact same thing, the last few feet of stopping the "low track" light would come on and the car would take longer to stop and then after 3 or 4 times, the ABS inop would come on. the pedal would also get kind of hard and then jump to the floor and back up. it was kind of annoying.

i thought it was due to the front right hub since after having a blowout there, the problem actually went away for a good month but then started again so i thought the sensor was bad. anyway a few months later i had the car in for a 100k mi tuneup of plugs/wires/etc and was going to have the tires rotated and asked the shop to check the abs sensors and they said the front pads only had 30% left and the rotors were starting to warp (and the rears were about the same) i ended up getting all new pads/rotors all the way around and the low trac/abs inop problem went away completely. this was about 3.5 years ago FWIW.

i do not have the traction control though...