I have a 2001 alero (4 cylinder) with 145K miles on it. ABS, Low Trac,
Service Light and sometimes Brake Light are on as soon as my car is in
motion(Lights are not lit initially when I turn the engine on. As soon
as I change the gear from parking to reverse or drive they all are
lit). I took it to Autozone for error code lookup but no codes were
reported. I gave it to the dealer for checkup. The dealer initially
said it will cost $80 for diagnostic but he called later in the
afternoon and said it might require 3 to 4 labor hours to diagnose the
problem and will cost me $200. I backed off. I don'[img]smileys/smiley25.gif[/img]t know how much more
life the car has so don't want to spend too much on it. I live in Texas
which requires annual vehicle inspection. I am already due for the
inspection. My vehicle will not qualify for inspection as the lights
are on. Is there any way to diable the lights and get the state
inspection done or any other alternative? I don't want to spend like
1000 bucks on this car and then trash it in a year.

I had a similar problem with my 2000 Impala, which turned out to be low brake fluid. Check that your reservoir is all the way up to the full mark. Sometimes hitting a big pothole (or very deep snow) can knock a wheel sensor loose, which will cause brake, ABS, and (maybe) low trac to come on. I've got an 01 Alero, and I'll check where the wheel sensors are tomorrow, so I can tell you where exactly to look.


Did all the lights come on at once, or did they come on one at a time over a few days or weeks? Have you had any work done to the car recently? Has the braking performance, feel, or sound changed? Some warning lights can be reset by disconnecting the battery for five minutes. This may not solve your problem, but it's worth a try.


Ask the dealer which codes were shown when they scanned the car, and post those codes for me. $80 to read codes at a dealer sounds about right. Autozone probably doesn't have a TechII scanner, which is the only one that will show all the codes a GM car can have. Autozone will normally only be able to read engine codes.


The only way I know of to disable the lights is to unplug the instrument cluster, which would be pretty obvious to the inspector, and would not fix anything anyway.

Hi,
We have a 2001 and ours has only 54,000 miles and the same thing started happening (same lights) the day we got the oil changed at a
national chain. Do you know where you check wheel sensors?

Did you have any luck fixing the problem? Had the emissions checked and they are fine.

i have 2001 alero and have the same problem.But for me, sometime it goes of and sometimes it comes on. I recentlywent to get my car serviced and they went through the computer to see what was wrong with it however, nothing was detected......


let me know what is wrong with it.





thanksEdited by: gregyoon

Check the wiring harness to the wheel sensors. The front harnesses are more likely to be bad than the rears. There is only one set of 2 or 3 wires going to the wheels. Trace it to the connector in the hub, unplug, and look for corrosion on the contacts. These harnesses are known to break on these cars, especially the fronts.


A harness with an intermittent short may not store a code, because the computer will only show a code when the harness has the short. By the time the car is scanned, it may not be showing anymore.

I just bought a 2003 4 cyl manual with 36,000 km's. In two months I've already put another 20,000 highway kms on it and I plan to put a lot more.


I have the ABS, Track Off, Check Vehicle Soon lights also. They are off every time I start the car. Sometimes they don't come on for 20 minutes ofdriving but sometimes they come on as soon as I start to move. Once in a while, I'm driving within the first 20 minutes and they are off, when I use the breaks, the ABS system activates with the noise and pulsation in the break peddle for an instance then the lights come on and the ABS seems to be deacitvated. All this in dry warm weather on ashphalt.


My little $100 obdII reader does not read any codes after the lights come on.


I'm starting to learn that thespeedsensors that the ABS and Traction Control systems use are in the front wheel bearing and I have to replace the entire bearing to replace the sensor. They seem easy to replace and cost $90 for the cheap one and $170 for the better quality one.


The repair seems easy enough if you can change pads and have access to torque wrench and bearing puller.


So I'm getting ready to give it a try with the better timkken bearing. Any comments from this forum on the difficulty of the job or this brand of bearing?

good luck fixing it and let me know if it works.....


i need to fix it as well

I need to fix it as well. Please let us know how it goes.

Good luck

Like I tell my team, Luck has nothing to do with it. Here's what I plan to do.


1. check/clean all the connections at each wheel and look for broken wires. If that doen't fix it then on to step 2.


2. buy a hub and put in on one side. If that doesn't fix it they I'll move it to the other side. Since my bearings are actually ok there is no danger driving it with the old parts.


I've seen a $75 part and a $175 Timken part, and a made in the usa part from the dealer for $422.


I'm putting the timken one in.


I was hoping someone could tell me how to electrically test the speed sensor before I take it off the car.

A Tech II scanner can determine which hub is bad, if the problem is the wheel speed sensor, which is built into the hub and cannot be removed separately. There is no way to electronically test the sensor before removing the hub, and without the tech II, no way to determine which sensor is bad. You have a one in four chance of getting it right the first time, since the computer uses signals from all four hubs for the ABS and traction control.

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Having had same problem with my son Gran Prix GPT took car to dealer had scan tool used. charged $80. wanted over $500 to replace reat bearing sensor assembly. Had one front replaced last year before taking to dealer I replaced other front thinking it was defective. Purchased new rear bearing (made in USA not China) for a little over $100. Before replacing bearing took ohm reading on new bearing speed sensor and old one that was defective and one front one I had replaced before of the three I checked the bad one was open the othersIchecked to get readings on all for future use three good ones were all the same. From this I deducted it is possible to check each one with ohm meter. I removed plug in wire from bearing sensor andapplied dielctric grease to connections. The bad one i took apart to see what made it work the electrical connections and inside of bearingand coil for sensor were rusty& nbsp;& nbsp;& nbsp;& nbsp;& nbsp;

Hey thanks, That helps a lot.


What kind of reading did you get on the good ones?

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The reading I got was 1000 ohs this was on a 30 year old Radio Shack analog meter . The bad one had no reading at all. When I took it apart the "wire" was real thin like hair.

Great; I've been looking for an excuse for a new multi-meter.


So when you take the plug out of the hub, is ther only two prongs there to test?

So I got the multi meter and jacked up the car. I tested the front and got a reading of a little over 1000 on the passanger side and 0 on the drivers side.


I thought I would test the back while I had the car on jack stands but they are a lot tougher to get to on the Alero.


Since I found a bad on on the front, I'll replace that and see what I get in the way of lights on the dash.Edited by: zoomie

so basically, if i were to change the hub wheel bearing, it will solve the problem on dash board and my abs and trac will be activate agian???

If after that you still have a problem these guys http://www.siaelec.com/index.asp have good price on abs unit compared to all auto parts stores I checked. I hope the bearing isyour problem that iseasy self fix.
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Sounds like a good thing to get a recal on. I have the same problem on mine. I also think that my wheel bearings are going out. I will check my sensors. I know I didn't ask this question but thanks to all.

I have two aleros and had this happen to one in the fall, and did not have time to deal with it. Stealer charged $545.00 total to fix it. Diagnosed the front right sensor toast and changed the hub.

Now alero #2 is showing abs traction issues and I plan on fixing it myself. Discs, pads and hibs are cheap on EBay. Thanks for the tips so far, post new info if you guys have any more ideas.

ALSO- the new hubs and wheel nuts have diff torque values, did you all know this?
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Changing the hub is not a big deal. Make sure you have 6pnt sockets for the three bolts at the back of the hub, I found them a little soft. and yest the torque settings are included in the package.
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When the weather got cold about November the 3 lights stopped coming on and didn't all winter. Now that it is getting warmer (Washington state) they came on today for the
first time this year This ABS,service engine, trac light problem first started last May and stopped about November. The car drives fine, just annoying that as soon as you put the car into gear they pop on most of the time.

Maybe it is a short or open or something. Any ideas?
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The wiring harness from the front wheels to the PCM is a common area for shorts or opens, which will cause the lights to come on. Look especially at the wiring where it passes near steering components, since it flexes there a lot. Also the connectors at the wheels (all four) tend to get loose and fill up with water and corrode.


In addition, make sure your brake fluid is full. Low fluid will cause the lights to come on.
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All good points, If you're gonna raise the car and take the wheels off you might as well put an ohm meeter on the hub assembly, that will tell you if the sensor is gone and you need to change the hub.

I had a similar problem with my 2002 Alero; the three dash lights coming on intermittently while driving, usually after turning the wheels starting out. I put the front end up on ramps, crawled under, disconnected the wiring connector at each wheel and sprayed both ends with an electronic cleaner, then 'worked' the connectors a bit as I put them back together. That was several days ago, and the problem seems to be fixed.

This may be of help to some of you with this problem.