I’ve got a 2009 Toyota Camry LE with the V6 engine in it. The car has a little over 300K miles on it, but still rides and drives like a dream. A month or so ago the ABS, stability control, and skid control lights would come on occasionally, but now they stay on constantly.
I bought an inexpensive Innova scanner that could read ABS codes and hooked it up to the car’s data port and it found codes that indicated that the problem was centered at the right-rear of the car. Since I had to change the back brakes anyway, I unplugged the ABS / speed sensor harness from the wheel hub assembly and cleaned both the sensor receptacle and the plug from the harness and plugged everything back in to see if it made a difference. All indicator lights are still on. I know that I shouldn’t have, but I went ahead and cleared the ABS codes to see if that would get rid of the warning indicators, but they still remain lit. I hooked up the code reader again to see what it showed, and the only code remaining was C1332, which means that there is an open circuit in the rear speed sensor circuit.
I’m going to unhook the speed sensor harness from the speed sensor again and take a closer look at the pins inside of the sensor to see if they’re corroded and need additional cleaning. If that fails, I’ll need to replace the wheel hub since the sensor assembly is integrated with it.
Parts-wise it doesn’t appear to be too expensive (naturally), but my worry is that I won’t be able to break the hub free from the backing plate without causing some real damage and ending up having to take it to a mechanic to complete the repair.
My question is this: Should I just go ahead and take the car to a garage and have them do this, or should I cross my fingers and make the attempt to do this myself? The videos and assembly diagrams don’t make this appear too difficult, and this will finally give me the incentive to possibly buy a torque wrench in the process.
Any mechanics out there with an opinion? I’m all ears…
Can you move this thread over to GQ? I don’t know what I was thinking when I posted this in this forum, but I’m pretty sure that this isn’t the place for it.
Usually the hub is not seized into its housing to where it’s really difficult to remove, though I have run across a few that I’ve needed a slide hammer on. I think it’s very unlikely that the removal attempt would cause damage. My thought is to try removing it, and if it’s just too stubborn put everything back together and take it to a shop.
I was originally thinking along those lines, but I was watching this video on YouTube’s “1A Auto” channel and it looked like the guy was having a hell of a time trying to get that hub separated from the plate https://youtu.be/k3TWC6NJk44 . That was making me feel a little leary about my trying to do this with my more limited set of tools. Then again, I definitely wouldn’t have tried hammering directly on the back of the hub assembly the way that he did either.
yeah, that’s the problem with hub/knuckle/brake parts; they’re mostly cast iron and exposed to all sorts of water, salt, and other contaminants. and cast iron rusts prodigiously. when I did the front hub/bearing assembly on my Ranger/ it took a combination of PB Blaster, heat from a propane torch, and a good bit of hammering to get the hub assembly out of the knuckle. you unfortunately have the added complication of a drum-in-hat parking brake and that Toyota decided to sandwich the backing plate between the hub assy and the knuckle.
I have a 2008 Toyota Sienna and I’ve had that same group of warning lights appear simultaneously & periodically over the years. My manual tells me that this is a only computer system issue (not an actual hardware problem) which can be resolved by resetting (effectively rebooting) the vehicle’s computer. In my Sienna this can be done by either not starting the vehicle for an “extended period” or disconnecting the battery.
The first time it happened was when we were en route to a cottage. The van sat for 4 days while were were there and the lights were off when I next started it.
My van gets this warning light combo about once a year and it always resets itself in time. I’ve just assumed its some design fault in Toyota system.
warning lights aren’t “normal.” the ABS module pretty much runs ABS, traction, and stability control, and any fault e.g. bad sensor will disable all systems. If the warning lights come on, they ain’t working.
I’m sure you’re correct about individual warning lights, but my manual (for a similar year Toyota with the same engine) tells me that when these 3 lights all appear simultaneously it indicates a problem with the system software not the car’s hardware.
I do have some knowledge of cars and when all three appeared at once on my dash (while driving) I thought it was very strange that all three components (sensors, whatever) would fail at the exact same time. But it did occur to me that all three appearing at once could also indicate a very serious failure of something. It definitely gets your attention when they all come on. I pulled over immediately and checked my manual to see if the van was safe to continue driving. The manual says what I stated above which is essentially let the system do a software reset.
All I’m suggesting is for the OP to check their manual to see it has the same instructions for their model of Toyota.
Sorry about not checking in on this thread a bit sooner, but I had some other stuff come up that took my attention for a day or two…
Anyway, I didn’t see anything in the manual which referred to a software reset. While I was doing my testing / diagnosing this past weekend, I did disconnect both battery terminals for over 30 minutes and pressed on the brake pedal to (hopefully) drain any residual charge that might be in the car’s electrical system. When I reconnected the battery the clock had reset itself to 12:00 and all of my radio presets were lost, so I assumed that anything related to the warning lights would have been reset, too. Unfortunately, the warning lights came back immediately as soon as I started the car.
I’m still going to disconnect the new speed sensor harness from the speed sensor and clean the pins on the sensor thoroughly and lightly coat them with dielectric grease to see if that miraculously fixes this.
I have the same problem on my Scion right now. There are numerous posts about this on various Scion forums. Looks like you are heading in the right direction. Usually it turns out to be a rear wheel sensor. The resistance can be checked on the car by unplugging the harness and measuring the pins on the sensor. Scions should be 400-500 (although I forget whether it is milliohms or whatever right now). A bad sensor is supposed to drop to around 200 or lower. On the Scion you have to replace the rear rub and bearing assembly for front wheel drive cars, and just the sensor on AWD cars. It is about a $90 part.
Unhooking the battery will not reset this code. It is an “active” code that stays on as long as the reading is bad. It will go off by itself when corrected. Indeed, my lights went off several times by themselves before finally staying on for good. It’s on my job list.
I might have to break out my multi-tester to probe that speed sensor now that you mention it. That will definitely tell me if I need to get that hub assembly replaced.
Funny coincidence that you mentioned Scion in your post. We’re checking out a 2013 Scion Xb for my wife as a knock-around vehicle. She’s crazy about it and we’re hoping to get our hands on it in the next few days or so. What model is yours and what do you think of it in general?
Oops, I meant the problem is with my Kia Sorento so the resistance goes with that vehicle. The Scion xB is fine. My xB is a 2006 which I really like. Different looking, great handling, excellent interior space and a steady 36 mpg. The later version like the one you are looking at are quite a bit different. Much heavier, more horsepower, lower mpg.
I had some weird problem where all the lights came on in my Subaru like that. Apparently the Electronic Control Module and the Transmission control module weren’t getting along. They said the ECM was bad and replaced it but then it wouldn’t sync with the old TCM so they had to replace that as well. It was all under warranty but it did make me nervous to have such a high dollar item just randomly fail.
Still haven’t had a chance to noodle around with the speed sensor yet. No covered parking plus constant rain equals me not kneeling down in the muck trying to touch probes to a connector under the rear of the car.
I’m pretty sure that I’m not dealing with an issue like Pool describes. I guess I’m lucky in a way that I’m not adding AWD to the list of suspects in this case. Just curious about how many miles the Subaru had on it before the ECM and TCM got all jacked up. We have a 98 Legacy that’s been good to us, but it definitely isn’t as complex as the newer models.
Hey, I have the same car (2009 Camry XLE V6) and experienced this same problem. The light would go on and warning would pop up on the little digital dash about VSC unavailable. But usually it would be gone next time I started the car up and it would only reappear once in a while. Then one day while driving on the highway, it got worse. The usual light and error popped up, but my dashboard indicators all dropped to zero too. It does seem speed sensor related.
Unfortunately (for you) my car seemed to fix itself somehow. After that time on the highway, the error hardly ever came up again. And at some point I got a new battery and ran into a different weird problem where it didn’t want to start with the new battery. There was a certain fuse I removed, I believe it was white, then it started back up with the fuse removed, and I reinstalled it. After that little fiasco, I’ve never hit the VSC error again.
On some of the Toyota repair forums I’ve seen the behavior that Sterling Archer mentioned above, but I haven’t had the issue of the dash indicators dropping to zero. I can’t quite remember where I saw what the solution was for that, but I may check in a little while. I wouldn’t be too surprised if this doesn’t happen again…
Well, I thoroughly cleaned the contacts on the speed sensor with no change in the indicators. My stepson has a code reader that may be able to show if any signal is generated when the rear wheel is spun, so I’ll see if he can pop over to help me with this.
Damn - I was really hoping I could’ve got this working…
Probably not the issue, but a few weeks ago my 2007 Avalon with the 3.5 V-6 had the check engine, VSC and traction control lights all turn on simultaneously. Freaked me out, but it actually turned out to be my gas cap being loose. I tightened it and had to pull the neg battery cable for 30 minutes to reset it. Never in a million years thought this issue would happen to me. Always thought it was kinda bs honestly!