ABS light mot failure

[Rolty84]

Evening all.
Had my berlingo van mot yesterday which failed on a few niggly things which I can change,but the one I can't figure out is the van failing on the following-
Abs light not illuminating on start up!
I've owned the van for around 8 years and can't for the life of me ever remember seeing the light come on at all and has passed every mot in the past without mention of it.
Have had the clocks out and inspected the leds which all seem fine,have checked fuses in the engine bay and under the dash but all seem fine too.
Has anyone ever had this problem and can point me in the right direction as I'm a tad stuck with ideas.
Many thanks

[Sol]

It wasn't a fail before but was made mandatory in the last two years or less.

It is meant to light up with ignition, it's possible you have a bad led as you wouldn't know by just looking at it. They don't go black necessarily so how would you know if it's good or not? You'd have to test them using a meter set to diode check and see if they each light up. Or you'd need the OEM diagnostic to see if you can turn on the dash icons in test mode.

I know this doesn't help you immediately, and without that led working you'll never mot the car so maybe try a garage who at least do a lot of Citroen and maybe have the Diagbox software. That way they may be able to prove one way or another, that it's the led or the dash cluster.

You could fit another cluster from a breaker but if the odometer is higher than yours, the car will update to the highest mileage so try to find one that's the same or less. That might work, even just to get it past the MOT.

[Rolty84]

I suspected it could be a dodgy led but as you say without testing it how would I know!
I like to do things myself so I may scout around the local scrappy and see if I can get a set of clocks with similar mileage to save messing about with these ones, it's my workhorse and would like to keep it on the road til it dies as its a reliable motor!
Anything need setting after fitting the other cluster or does it just know what's what if you know what I mean?

[jj9]

If your soldering skills are up to it you could remove a working LED from say the seat belt warning light and put it in place of the ABS LED.

.

[Sol]

Good shout JJ.

And yeah Rolty, you can usually just fit a cluster from the same model and it will work. It's not coded but the BSI will copy the highest mileage, whether cluster or BSI internal, and make everything match the highest value. Which won't matter if you find one similar to yours or lower.

[cancunia]

Just a thought, but a while ago I spun a front wheel using the engine while it was jacked up on one side and got an ABS warning. It went away again as soon as I drove along the road but it did light the warning.

[Kyleonsite]

Daft question - but does it actually have ABS? My 2004 Pug Partner doesn't but it still has the reluctor rings on the CV joints -IIRC it was an £800 option.

[Rolty84]

As far as I'm aware it does have abs,it has the abs pump behind/below the battery.
Just haven't ever noticed the abs light not coming on before.
I have a multi meter to test the led on the cluster and go from there!

[Pedronicus]

Would it be an idea to find a quite road somewhere and actually try some heavy breaking to see if the ABS actually works/is present. That may even clear the fault.

[Guanock]

Easy test for the ABS, find a loose gravel surface and with quite light braking the ABS should activate.

Geoff