ABS Light 1996 Grand Caravan

[tobybul]

Just want to share this with the caravan folks. A few months ago, the abs light on my dash came on....I brought it to the dealer and they wanted to to charge me a fee to diagnose the problem. I wasnt ready to spend the $$ so I put it off but also thinking I would get a 2nd opinion from another nearby dealer. Well, they also wanted to do the same thing.

I really did not want to spend the $$ they quoted me so I decided to put off the work. Make a long story short, I poked around and checked the fuse box in the engine compartment. Turned out the abs fuse was busted. I replaced it and now its fine.

Now I ask, why did they just not do that? It took me less than 5 minutes to figure it out and fuse costing less than $1. Very disappointing....

[RickMN]

I'm not sure what you're upset about here. You brought your vehicle in because the ABS light was on and they gave you a price to diagnose the problem. You decided not to pay them to diagnose. Did you expect them to do it for free?

ABS lights don't go on just for the fun of it. The ABS computer has set a trouble code. The dealer wanted to attach the scanner and read that code to start their diagnostic procedure. That's the recommended way to proceed.

If you're thinking that the only problem is a burned out fuse, you very likely still have an ABS problem going on. A burned out fuse can be a sign of a failing ABS pump. To find out for sure, you really need to see the ABS code that turned on the ABS light.

There are a lot of bad things you can say about dealer service practices. But them wanting to charge you a diagnostic fee to pull codes after an ABS light isn't one of them.

You can still probably get that code if you go to an Autozone store. They'll read codes for free.

[tobybul]

The cause of the fuse blowing was moisture that seeped into the fuse box. It was obvious when I open the box as there were traces of where water got in.

part of th reason for this post was to advise to check the fuse box first b4 going too far........