A few years ago, I had a wheel speed sensor on my 2005 Camry. I hooked up my scanner and went for a road test. All the wheel speeds looked to be even.
Just to see what would happen, I cleared the code
It never came back
Something just occurred to me . . . I’m pretty sure your car doesn’t have stability control, but I believe it does have traction control. Is it possible you went through a puddle or over some kind of a dip/bump, so that one of the wheels was actually spinning?
If so, then that might be considered normal operation, as the vehicle is just informing you of a particular situation
I never attempt to open a bleeder because when my car needs its first brake job it is more than 3 years old and the bleeders are solidly frozen in place from salt. If you attempt to remove them you will break off the bleeder and the parts stores around here won’t take your old calipers for a core.
The only way I have found to remove a bleeder without breaking it is to remove the pads, step on the brake and blow out the piston remove the caliper from the hose and put the caliper in my vise and heat it enough to free the rust bond from the bleeder. When you have gone that far you might as well rebuild the caliper.
This is all oo much trouble, I haven’t yet had any problems with just pushing the piston back but I have only done about a half dozen brake jobs on ABS cars.
Well @oldtimer, I’m glad to hear that I’m not the only one who’s broken off those damn little bleeder screws. And I always did the same as you. Remove the piston…into the vise and heat it up. I was beginning to think I was the only one that ever broke one.
I’ve even just did a light honing and put the cylinder or caliper back together with the old parts and never had a problem.
I never opened the bleeder screw either until I was informed about the possible ABS problems.
It was here that I first heard of the problem and changed my routine. I always did at least break the screw loose and then right back tightened down. The reason why, was that my dad always argued that if you never break it loose…3 years down the line and you repair a leaky line and need to bleed it and you’ll beak it off trying to bleed it…
I like you, live in the salt belt and I’ve always went a step farther and pulled the bleeder screw and put a little anti-sieze on, and put it back in. Not at every brake job, but on the first for that car that I do, and maybe every other brake job.
So the Haynes manual says that on ABS models “remove the bleed screw”. I did not remove it but I opened it. That’s the GMC Sierra book for 2002 and other model years. Sometimes you have to interpret the instructions but Haynes did not invent the procedure. Most people who say that they have never seen an instruction really mean that they didn’t read all the captions under the pictures.
@db4690; The car was just sitting after a trip to the movies and I did not go over any puddles. My wife is the primary driver and she is a very conservative driver. The car does not have traction control (def no VSC), just an LE trim with no thrills.
I was thinking of getting an interface and using the torque app but seems like the torque app would not be able to read ABS codes. Will see if it comes back.
I would agree with blackbird, there is no reason to open the bleed screw when doing brakes. I have been doing this for over 20 years now and have yet to have any issues.
I ve never done any anti lock work so I ll leave that alone.
I do bleed all my brakes, pretty much flush them, every time I change pads or shoes. I don t open them to push the caliper in. i open them after the work is done.
i go from wheel to wheel, one at a time, and flush each line. after cracking the the bleeder, i attach a tube and stick the other end in a bottle of brake fluid. then i pump the brake for a bit, adding fluid to the master cylinder as needed. i do this to each wheel. then i repeat this whole process. lather rinse repeat. it seems to get all the air out and all the old fluid out too.
the only time i ve had trouble with a bleeder screw is when i ve gone after it with not quite the right tool at first. usually i use a deep socket and adapt it to my half inch ratchet and they come out fine.
when i finish bleeding a wheel i smear some chassis grease on the bleeder.
i did have to twist off one of my brake lines to change a wheel cylinder last time. i smeared grease around the flare fittings when i finished , hopefully they won t rust again
I’m still thinking about that bleed nipple and opening it up prior to pushing in the main piston on the caliper… I did forget to mention that I have had a long standing habit of sucking out the brake fluid and replacing whats in the reservoir prior to doing brake work. Now this will NOT prevent any contaminants from being pushed back up and into the ABS system… But this is what I do…I dont think it has had any effect on whether I push contaminants into the ABS at all…because well…it CANT.
Again…I probably wont ever open that nipple when pushing in the piston bec it has never caused me a problem…when it does…I will alter my technique. I also believe that if the caliper had enough crud inside of it…to cause an ABS issue…then the main problem on said vehicle would NOT be that the pads need to be changed… If there was that much crap in the caliper we would more than likely see caliper binding issues and the job of the day would be a caliper replacement.
Anyway I am rambling and nobody really cares about this bleed nipple anyway…including myself…LOL I just couldnt get it out of my head. Silly…
I had a 68 Dodge Dart in 72 or so and had to put brakes on it. I’m not remembering precisely why I had to open the bleeders on it but every dang one was rusted in place and broke off. I ended up replacing at least two or more wheel cylinders. I do remember honing them out and rebuilding them so must not have had to replace all of them. The car was bought new though so in just three or four years, they were rusted so bad they would twist off. Good or bad, I do feel better exercising the bleeders a little bit from time to time. Hate it when those things break off but never has happened again.
I would also add that I don’t crack the bleeder screw.(with ABS). I don’t feel it is needed. Possibility is there to backwards contaminate, but it has never happened so i will continue as bbird has said.
When it works, I’m not going to let common sense get in the way.