I have a 2009 tc that I bought in Feb of 09. The ABS light has been on and off since I bought it, with it almost constantly on this past summer and fall. I brought it in to the dealer once and they told me nothing was wrong with it, and it wasn't until it failed inspection that I brought it in again. A few weeks ago they diagnosed it as a bad brake light switch and replaced that part. Within 2 days of replacing it the light is coming on again. It is significantly less frequent but it will be on when I start the car and then off the next time I start it whereas before the switch was replaced it would always be on. I am bringing it back to Toyota again to have them rediagnose the problem but I am wondering if this is a common issue with the tc? The car has 27k miles on it, and I haven't had any problems with the brakes themselves. The only time my ABS has kicked in has been in the snow, and at that time the light was off.

 

wow, what a load of failure.

the ABS light has absolutely nothing to do with your brake lights, hell, all your brake lights could be broken and the ABS light wouldn't come on because it has nothing to do with that.

the problems are either your ABS wheel speed sensors (but since you didn't mention your speedometer not working, i'm guessing their fine) so then it would have to be the ABS module. i would guess that since it is infrequent, it is either a bad connection, bad ground or something along those lines.

now then, call scion corporate, report the problem, take it in for service, and also, look up your state's lemon laws for cars. in MD, i believe if you bring a car in for warranty work 3 times for the same problem, the car is declared a lemon and they gotta buy it back from you.

also consider taking it to a another (preferably better) dealership since yours sounds clueless.

by the way, 27k on an 09, pretty hefty mileage there. anyway, best of luck.

 

My wife owns a 2008Xd which is having exactly the same issues. Hers goes one bit further where the ABS will start grabbing on here. This happens in cold weather nearly every time.

It appears to me that as this seems to be across years and models that Toyota either has a bad supplier or they have selected a defective breaking system. Either way. Please respond as I would like to know your outcome. You would be very surprised how many other Scion owners are seeing this same issue.

 

Well, my ABS never had an issue like that, only the light. When I took it in for rediagnosis, I think they diagnosed a bad brake actuator. They replaced that and then then service guy told me that even though the light was off he knew it was going to come back on. They ended up keeping it for about a week, gave me a free rental car, and finally diagnosed a wire that was short circuiting in the instrument panel. They replaced the entire instrument panel. The guy at Toyota told me that he had never seen a problem like this in a Scion before, and because it was such an expensive fix they had to get permission from Corporate to even order and install the parts. To this day the light has not come back on, and it's been a year now! Good luck! It would be interesting to know what the outcome of yours is!