Hi, I own a 2003 Honda Accord LX-G 4door in Canada so its the american style accord

I got this problem, my ABS light will come on sometimes, not continuously but intermitently if you understand what I mean, sometimes it comes on for 10minutes sometimes for 1hour. I have 49 000km on it and decided to take the problem to the dealership. Thats were a second problem comes to me, well not a problem but a big suspicion, the guys at the dealership tells me "we'll take a look at it and see what we can do, then he said rapidly and looked like he wish he didn't say it "but if the ABS light stays on continuously after then you'll need to come back with the car for repair" what?continously?how come? I smell someone who plans on making money on my back here!!

So they get it in the garage and 20minutes later I take my car out, go for a ride and damn the freaking ABS light stays ON all the time, its been 3days and the light never went off. Im really like "what the hell?" before I went to the dealership the abs light will come on from time to time and sometimes it wouldn't show for a week. I really smell some stealers here, I think they must have done something (like disconnecting something so the light stays on forever and I feel in danger and go back trow my money so they change something expensive and make some money to live lol)

does someone had had this problem with the abs light?is a service manual somewhere? or scans from it? I would like to investigate on my own before trowing 800bucks when I got suspicions

 

im suspisious against dealers for this one thing

about 3months ago a tv channel got a car to the several dealerships for it tru the provinces, the car was a dodge caravan and got 60 000 they replaced everything on it, alternator, drive belt, brakes, all that was an easy replacement even if the old parts were correct. So then they get the cars to 10-11 dealerships around, and on them only 2 said the car was in superb shape, most dealers reported over 1000$repairs come even got to the 2000$mark lol including things that were brand new in their report as things to absolutely replace wow
talk about custumer satisfaction lol

 

I will give this a try. My thoughts:
There are dishonest car dealers, doctors and engineers as well.
Why not try to establish a relationship with a mechanic you can trust?
Ask other Honda owners at the coffee place. This will take some time. Ask your mechanic to list the ABS codes and give you an estimate. There are techs on this site that may help you if you are kind to them.

 

I was looking for them do I wait till they reply to my thread if they want or should I look somewhere in particular in this forum ?

 

You're in the right place - they're around here somewhere... Most of us stop by & answer questions when we feel like it - like a hobby.

I haven't hadany ABS probems on the '03 yet, so I don't know the answer for you.

 

and about a repair manual?are there any scans of honda's repair manual somewhere on this forum or on the web?
I may look to see if Hanes did one for this car

 

Sadly, Haynes won't touch the ABS system. The Haynesmanual for my '95 Accord V6 says something to the effect of "We don't recommend attempting to repair the Anti Lock Brake systemyourself. Take your car to a service professional or a dealer."
The Helm manual is the consumer available version of the Honda Shop manual. I don't have one cause they are so expensive. You can checkinto it here: www.helminc.com
I would look for adifferent Honda Certified Shop to diagnose your problem. I found several in the Yellow Pages here. Do they have Yellow Pages in Canada?
Maybe one of our Honda Techs will get on here andprovide some diagnosis insight.I believe this is the busy season for them.

 

The newer cars don't have a separate SCS connector that you jumper with a paperclip. Instead you have to jumper between 2 particular pins of the OBD-2 data connector. Somewhere around here should bea diagram showing which pins to jumper. If you get it wrong, you can fry your ECU so I don't want to GUESS.

When you do this, the ABS lamp will flash out an error code. Just like the error codes from the engineECU. The first step to figuring this out is get that error code & post it here.

 

(shhh!) they just got phones last month!

 

A common cause of ABS malfuction (resulting in illuminated indicator activation) is a faulty, or in some cases simply dirty, wheel speed sensor.It usuallyoccurswith one of thefront wheels since the front of the vehicle is subject toa volatile operatingenvironment. If you turn the steering wheel to lock with the vehicle engine turned on, you can locate the wire (typically just one) associated with the wheel speed sensor that is a smaller diameter than the brake line hose.

You can follow the wire down to the mechanical,magnetic or optical sensor usually located in the hub bearing assembly. Somewhere in this vicinity you can detect the plastic connection harness, and from this you can determine whether the accessible part of the sensor has been altered or tampered. You will have to turn the steering wheel to lock in the opposite direction to examine the wheelwell on the other side.

Sometimes a thorough cleaning of the sensor with brake parts cleaner, available at any auto parts retailer, resolves the fault because debris can become lodgedand obscures the operation of the sensor. It is possible that the dealership attempted this basic initial diagnosticprocedure, and the source of the original intermittent malfuntion mighthave been agitated. This might have been the reason for the dealer's disclaimer before agreeing to the contract for service. Be sure to follow up with the technician and determine exactly what steps were taken while in their custody.

Disconnecting your negative battery cable, then subsequently and simultaneously disconnecting your positive battery cable for at least 30 seconds, will remand the vehicle's computer to default parameters, and will reset the ABS indicator until the malfunction is again detected. If you have fixed the malfuntion, the lamp will remain off. If the lamp is initially off, but illuminates while driving, note the driving conditions (vehiclevelocity and acceleration, direction of travel, weather conditions, etc)because these details might be helpful to a technician. If the lamp illuminates immediately beforethe vehicle is in motion, thefaultexists at the time of the ABS initialself-diagnostic checkduringvehiclestart-up.

Hopefully your promblem will be resolved and you will be able to rest easier. Cheers!