We have a 2004 Toyota Sienna that has now about 40,000 miles. We have had no major issues at all since buying the car new from the lot. However, in the last week the car has developed a serious problem where the anti skid light on the dashboard omes on and the car pulls to the right as if the right front brake is being applied. It seems to primarily happen when we are accelerating ( happened when I was accelerating onto the Garden State Parkway at about 30 miles per hour) and turning to the left. The car will shudder for a few seconds and then the light goes off and the car is fine again. This will happen once every few miles or sometimes miss a few hours. Only events to the car recently were 1) an oil and filter change the day prior to when this started and @) over the last month or so the car has got sluggish sometimes when you press down the accelerator i.e. it takes a few seconds to kick in. Would love any advice - do i just take it to the toyota garage. Is the obvious action to replace whatever computer chip controls the anti skid device?
Thanks much in advance
Gerry Hickey
The most likely cause is a faulty ABS sensor. That being said, you need to have the ABS controller scanned for error codes. Your average OBD 2 code reader CANNOT read ABS codes.
No, this is not the “obvious action”. This needs to be loooked at.
If you live in the snow belt and the streets are greasy due to the recent storm it’s possible that your brake is binding, the wheel is dragging, the ABS is detecting the wheel slipping but is detecting an inability to free the wheel up to roll and stop it from slipping (again due to the binding brake). That would cause your pulling to the right and your ABS light.
Get this looked at ASAP. You may have a brake problem rather than an ABS system problem.