For the last 3 winters my Panda (04 Dynamic 1.2) has ABS warning light fits. It will come on (a few times a week at first) and then mostly disappear when I come back to the car later that day. Eventually, it won't disappear and the only way to clear it seems to be a trip to FIAT to clear the error messages and clean the sensor. So I have 2 questions:

1. When the light is on, is the ABS disabled or will it make the ABS turn on incorrectly?
2. Is it easy to clean the sensor myself and will the warning light go away? Or is cleaning it not enough i.e. the errors have to be cleared too.

Thanks in advance

Only during the winter? Get your battery checked.

1. If the warning light is on then no, the ABS won't work.
2. Pass, yes, no, dunno, might be the unit is faulty, but get the battery checked properly first.

Thanks Pandablues, the battery is under one year old. I changed it as the power steering was failing due to low voltage (common problem that has disappeared completely now).

ABS is a fail safe system, so as mentioned above it won't activate when the light is illuminated.

What is the fault code? There is no way to 'clean' the sensors so I'd advise it's either a connection or faulty sensor, not dirt.

Did you have the ABS recall carried out?

From what I remember, the main issue was water ingress into the ECU causing faults, and much more likely to happen in damp weather.

D4nny8oy said:

Did you have the ABS recall carried out?

From what I remember, the main issue was water ingress into the ECU causing faults, and much more likely to happen in damp weather.

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A very good point.