northernrachel

New Member
Hi all, I am new to the forum and expect to be posting a lot until I manage to sell this piece of rubbish! (3 breakdowns in 3 months! :doh:)
I have a LR Freelander W Reg XEDi 2ltr and a basic knowledge of cars. The other day I had to brake pretty sharpish, and noticed since that the brakes didn't feel as keen as they should. I had the pads replaced a few weeks ago and done 300+ miles with them on.
Yesterday I was driving as normal and the brakes felt very weak and I had to gear down quickly to slow down. I performed an emergency stop to check and the ABS didn't kick in at all, the car took about 7-10 secs to come to a stop from 30 mph.
I took it to the usual guy who does our car who explained that somehow the ABS had disabled itself? He had all the brake assembly to bits and gave everything a good clean, he checked over the braking system as a whole too and couldn't find anything out of the ordinary.
He said there was absolutely no air in the brakes, he's bled everything. He's enabled to ABS and it's now working fine. Brake fluid, lines etc. all fine. He is equally as baffled!
If anyone can shed any light as to why this may have happened it would be most helpful, thank you :)
 
Could it be anything related to the brake servo and lack of enough vacum?
He has literally had a look at everything and said it all looks fine, but I will ask him when I pick it up tonight. The brakes were very spongy though and he said there wasn't any air at all in them.
If it's anything, it recently had the wiring to the ECU corrected as the wire was corroded, the mech stripped it and repaired it.
 
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if you ABS didnt work it would have brought your ABS liht on unless the bulb has been wired up to go out instead of waiting until it reaches approx 4mph
 
No lights on dash.
Have just been thinking too, I recently had the two back tyres replaced (same tread) but the tread on the fronts is totally different (will be getting matched up this weekend, backs were illegal). Thinking poss this may have confused the ABS?
 
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Try double taping the brake pedal. Feel if the brake pads bite the disk and stop the car.
You mention that your brake pedal feels spongy, that is a good indicator that might be some air traped somewhere. Double taping the pedal will compress the air and make your brakes work better.


If double tap works, then my guess is that the traped air is messing thing up.
Guive that a go, see what happends.
 
Apart from anything else, you should check your VCU is ok - assuming you have a propshaft fitted.
 
mines the same for spongy i have the xedi aswell and a double tap is better i have plumbed 5 ltrs though my system and still have air somewhere just god knows where lol

does you ABS light come on when ignition turned on at all
 
Thank you OIW :)
Will give him a bell this aft, have got it back today and everything is as it should be but I dont have 100% confidence in them, so the old man is going to have a tinker with it today.
However much of an expensive PITA it may be, I've learnt a hell of a lot about cars since I bought it! :lol:
thank you everyone for your suggestions, the mech I use is retired and does it as a past time, he only charges for parts and is a good friend of ours :)
 
Might help. I did similar in a 1999 Freelander. Replaced all the sensors, pads etc. Eventually found that a shuttle valve in the ABS pump had stuck. Replaced the pump...
 
Might help. I did similar in a 1999 Freelander. Replaced all the sensors, pads etc. Eventually found that a shuttle valve in the ABS pump had stuck. Replaced the pump...

did you do the shuttle valve bypass while you had the pump out.. if you took the pump out i no you can do them without if you dnt mind the struggle
 

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