2003 Toyota Corolla E12

[drew3056]

Recently bought an E12, it has not long had new discs and brake pads but whenever I brake and slowly come to a stop my pedal vibrates and makes a loud buzzing sound. Spoke to my mechanic and he does not know what the issue is. It has passed its MOT. But wanted to see if anyone else has had this issue or knows of what this could be.

 

 

[Gerg]

I have not had this issue, but this sounds like your ABS system is operating when it has no need to. 

The ABS measures wheel rotation (and thence if a skid is occurring) via a notched steel ring and a small magnetic pick up that sits just above it at each wheel, usually behind the wheel bearing on the drive shaft or sometimes integral to the bearing.  If the ring or pick up gets contaminated with ferrous debris (i.e. rust) then it can cause the sensor to give false wheel rotation information to the ABS computer, causing it to think that a wheel is skidding, at which point it will try to minimize the skid by (noisily) modulating the brake pressure to that wheel.

The steel ring itself can also split if the mounting surface it is fitted onto rusts and expands, which can give the same false results.  Or the pick up sensor can fail.  The area they live in is often dirty and rusty, so dismantling to inspect can be difficult without causing some damage to the pick up when trying to remove it.  A good technician should be able to examine the waveform coming from each sensor to decide which wheel (if any) is at fault, with not dismantling required at that stage.

Or it could be something else. 

I'm not an expert on these, I'm just a Toyota owner with an interest.  Some of the people who post here are actual Toyota technicians, perhaps they can enlarge on this?

Perhaps get a passenger to video it happening and post it here, if it is safe to do so?

[Dread2zz]

Defo an ABS problem......

[drew3056]

Ok great, thanks guys.

Is this potentially a big and expensive job? I mean I bought the car for £500. Worth fixing?