ESP or ABS problem excuse the second post

[trigster]

firstly thanks to everyone who posted to my original message but just incase people didn't view it due to its title i'm posting again! OK so the car has ESP, its fine until you touch the brake pedal and then the ESP warning light comes on. Obviously somethings not quite right, so as i'm new to electronic cars (used to have an old 80) does this imply its some bit of electronic gadjetry has gone wrong or is it morwe likely to be something mechanical? Acording to the manual this light also comes on if there is a problem with the ABS which might be more likely with the brake pedal evidence? Has anyone else suffered this fate and form past experience are ABS problems expensive to fix? The strange thing is though that if it were an ABS problem why doesn't that warning light come on instead. I can turn the ESP off before i pull away but if it is then an ABS problem how the hell would you know? I'm reluctant to drive the car much at the moment as you never know when you might rely on the ABS and then find out its not working anyway! Help!!

[richy_uk]

Only time I had something similar was with a 3 series BMW. The ABS sensors failed which made the ABS and stability control lights come on (ASC+T on BMW). From what I gather, stability control uses the input from ABS sensors (amongst other things). If this is the problem, under normal driving, you wouldn't notice. You could test it by finding a slippery road, getting up to speed and hit the brakes hard to see if the ABS works, but that may not be too wise. If it is sensors, they're not too expensive.

[peterb]

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You could test it by finding a slippery road, getting up to speed and hit the brakes hard to see if the ABS works...

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Mmmm, I did that yesterday ... when some plonker decided that there was no need to look for, and give way to, traffic coming from his right on a roundabout. Despite a rather greasy road surface, I managed to stop a couple of inches from his driver's door.