I drive a manual 2012 Scion tC. Today omw of dropping my buddy home from work, my ABS, hand brake light, and power steering light came on. ABS stays on while the hand brake and power steering light goes on and off
but the hand brake is not engaged and the steering wheel is easy to turn (which makes no sense to me). Has anyone experienced this before?

If so, what were your solutions?


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Brake light - If your brake fluid isn't leaking, it my be time to change brake pads. If your pads are thin, the caliper pistons are fully extended (which depletes the fluid reservoir.) This depletion triggers your brake light.

Inspect the thickness of your brake pads. Front pads typically last 50 to 60 thousand miles. Rear pads typically last 80 to 90 thousand miles. You probably only need to change the front OR the rear, not both. When you press the brake cylinders back into the calipers, fluid will be pushed from the lines into the reservoir. That should turn off the brake light. Resist the temptation to add brake fluid before worn pads are replaced. Pressing the pistons with too much fluid will push fluid out of the reservoir and all over your engine bay and components. Brake fluid will ruin paint so make sure to wipe up spillage.

Not sure why your ABS and power steering lights are on. Might want to eyeball your power steering fluid level and top off if necessary. Low fluid may be signs of a leak in your power steering system. A DTC scanner might give additional clues on your power steering light. An ABS scanner might identify your ABS problem.

 

I agree here with 62 that this is generally an indication that the brakes need some love.

Something else that might be helpful is that the tC2 uses electronic power steering (so there's no fluid to worry about). This is also likely why the steering feels so vague if you don't have a strut tower bar.

While inspecting the brake pads/lines I would check to make sure all the ABS sensors are happy (connected) as well and then and top off the fluid if you have good pad life. I topped my fluid off about 5k miles before I ended up replacing my pads/rotors at 75k (had great pad life remaining but wanted better/quieter pads and d/s rotors). If you have questions about how to do that or what to look for let us know. Hope it's something simple.

 

Good to know. The 1st generation power steering system burns fluid rather quickly.

 

Euw. Sounds like my parents (all) Honda's. At least I'm good are rebuilding the pumps now lol.

 

Thank you all for the responses! But turns out what had happened was that me unclogging the AC drain pipe, because previous owner never took care of the car, via using an air pressure spray might have caused some over spray and got on some electrical components. But now that my car sat a whole day in the Cali sun, it seemed to have fixed the issues I had & evaporated the water.

 

AC drain pipe! was the next thing I was gonna... j/k.