Faulty wheel speed sensor [Replaced]

[Shaun Witts]

All I did when I did mine (replaced all four even though only one was broken) was jack up the vehicle, remove the wheels. Screw a 4cm screw in the broken part and lever out with a small claw (small claw hammer if will fit) and a piece of wood to rest the claw on. Any that were really tight to refit I gently sanded down to reduce the diameter a touch. Regards Stephen

Good tip. Just had to replace my left rear sensor, and it broke off trying to prise it out.
First time I tried it the screw pulled out, but the hole it left allowed me to screw it in a bit further next time and it then levered out.
I was surprised how tight the new one was, despite cleaning out the gunk from the hole.

 

[mlh677]

Thanks to @Loz and other contributors for this hugely useful thread!

I got caught out by a failed NSF sensor just before my MoT in January and timings meant that I paid for the garage to fix it.

This thread has been invaluable in recent days (along with other nuggets across the site) as my OSF sensor started to report intermittent faults a few weeks ago and gave out completely last week, bringing with it the associated ABS/ESP/Cruise Control & Stop-Start errors.

Hydraulic Jack & Axle Stands in place I set about the removal, with penetrating oil, grease, woodscrews & claw hammer on standby. Once bolt was removed I found the sensor to be stuck fast...

At this point I decided to try reaching for a couple of screwdrivers before snapping off the sensor head and using the woodscrew/claw hammer method. Within a minute or so I had successfully prised the first screwdriver into position - working around the sensor head - and then levered the sensor out fully with a larger screwdriver (you can see some of the screwdriver marks on the old sensor).

As previous post, the new sensor was a tight fit after cleaning the hole out. I performed some very minor surgery with a stanley knife to help the new sensor into position. I also applied a touch of grease to potentially help with future removal.

Having put a number of miles under the wheels this afternoon, there has been no evidence of ABS issues upon OBD scan.

Going into this job knowing exactly what issues I was likely to encounter was invaluable. Thanks to All who have contributed!

 

[manfrotto]

I must have been lucky - I changed one on a friends Tiguan, and the old one just pulled out without any issues.

 

[asutton709]

Evening all,
Are there any non subscription apps available to diagnose which sensor is causing the problem. I hoped Torque Pro would do it but can't see the option.
Cheers

 

[mlh677]

The full version of Torque did not pick up the wheel speed sensor issue for me either. It could be worth trying Car Scanner - I installed it after reading some good things though never got around to setting it up properly, since using Torque for DPF monitoring and OBDeleven for any diagnostics suits my needs.

OBDeleven can be used for reading and clearing fault codes without a subscription if you wanted to consider that option:-

 

[Farnorthsurfer]

I recently replaced my left rear ABS sensor and the information here was very useful thank you. A word of caution though. I also had to resort to a woodscrew and levers with liberal application of WD40 and some swearing. Got the job done though. Next day drove 300 miles in atrocious weather. Parked up, two days later went on a short trip and thought the rear diff on my 4Motion was falling out of the van. The left rear wheel bearing was knackered big time!!!
So my first thought was that somehow I had damaged the wheel bearing seal pulling the ABS sensor out but when I got the bearing out there was no sign of damage on the bearing seal. My new theory is that I washed WD40 into the wheel bearing causing its failure by wrecking the grease. I am sure that somehow the two jobs were related.
Hope thats useful to someone and good luck with your sensor changes.