The ABS light is on, and front brakes are.

Tiny
ANONYMOUS
  • MEMBER
  • 1997 HONDA ACCORD
  • 180,000 MILES
The ABS light is on, and front brakes are making a grinding noise.
Thursday, December 27th, 2012 AT 8:36 PM

1 Reply

Tiny
CARADIODOC
  • MECHANIC
  • 33,873 POSTS
First you have to determine if the grinding is from worn brakes or false ABS activation, and I can help with that without hearing it. When the yellow ABS warning light is turned on by the computer, it turns the system off, so you're not hearing the ABS system doing its thing. That means you are way past when the brakes should have had a maintenance inspection, the linings are worn down to metal, and besides the normal pad replacement you will almost certainly need new rotors too. New rotors have come down a lot in price, ... So much so that many mechanics don't even try to save your old ones and machine them. There is a published legal minimum thickness rotors can be machined to and allowed to wear down to, and by the time you hear grinding, they are way past that legal limit. Even when they aren't grinding yet, many mechanics just replace them as part of the brake job because that is cheaper for them than the cost of the cutting bits and other tools used with the brake lathe.

Have the brakes inspected tomorrow. They won't grind very long before you lose at least half of your brake system.
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Friday, April 23rd, 2021 AT 1:19 PM

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