has anyone ever had a "service brakes" alert message on their FEH? It came on, stayed on for about 5 minutes and went away. Ive driven the car three times since it happened and the alert hasnt come back on. I hate to truck down to the dealer for no reason if anyone has had this experience. The brakes are working fine and the car just came from the dealer for the 5000 check up.
Anne

 

Another member reported having that light. She had to have an ABS unit replaced.

Oh, here it is...
https://www.greenhybrid.com/discuss/...tion.4692.html

 

How's Richmond? I'm originally from Norfolk. I worked in Richmond a lot when I was a driver. My sister is currently going to VCU.

 

Richmond at the moment is uncharacteristically cold. We aren't really used to anything below 20F for any length of time. After I bragged about my 501 tank yesterday, my ICE stayed on longer and a brake alert message showed up. It was my first brag so maybe I should stop.

Richmond is not the sleepy southern city it once was. Many Fortune 5oo companies have moved west of richmond into Goochland County which has attributed to a lot of urban sprawl. The urban problems are terrible so people have moved out into the counties. There is more to do here now..better theater, restaurants and shopping.

Ive noticed Norfolk is improving and growing. Ive got a place in Va Beach and I go to Norfolk alot in the summer. This year in my FEH, I expect to do less driving..you do remember Norfolk heat and humidity, dont you? I bought that car in August and spent that time wondering if I should have done it. Finally caved in and used the real ac.

Anne

 

The Service Brake System message came on last night after I'd driven about 15 miles on my drive home from work. I was sitting at a red light off the highway exit ramp when it came on. The ABS light is on and so is a red Brake(!) light in the top right of the dash. Uggg. The car is stopping fine, but needless to say, it's sitting in the garage right now and is going to the dealer later today or tomorrow morning.

Then posts from others have been really helpful to see this isn't my problem in isolation. I'll post more when they've run the diagnostic to tell me what's going on.

 

If you have unusual wheel slip / wheel spin such as on ice or snow, this can briefly confuse the ABS system. It takes a certian number of "normal" computer cycles, or perhaps key off cycles to prove out everything is ok and reset the light. How do I know? I ran my FEH with one wheel off the ground on a jack stand once to test something else out.

The computer, sensing it was unusual for the right wheel to be going faster than the left ( right - 10 MPH, left - zero ) tripped the ABS warning light, which stayed on for ( probably less than ) 5 minutes of normal driving afterwards. ABS flashes anytime ABS is in use.

Any chance those of you who had ABS light come on had wheel slip or slide of some sort? If not on ice or snow, this could also happen if you jump a curb or bump, and one wheel is off the ground for just half a second.

A persistant ABS light should be serviced for sure. A lamp that goes out after 5 minutes or 3 key cycles is probably functioning correctly.
-John

 

Thanks, no I'm not aware of any slipping recently. Despite a cold winter, I haven't had much chance to feel safe with my 4x4! Anyway, I dropped the FEH off at a Ford dealer last Thursday on my way out of town. Seemed as good a time as any for them to work on it. From what I understand, there was a failure somewhere in a hydraulic part on the brakes. So, it really was a problem! The part is on "emergency backorder" with no ETA for when the dealer will be able to fix it. They said it's the first of these issues they've seen, but then again there aren't a lot of the FEHs on the road around here. Anyway, Should anyone continue to be interested, when it is truly fixed and I know better the exact part and issue, I'll post what I find out.

 

Hmmm now I'm curious I dropped my '06 off today for an oil change and have them check my ABS while it was there since the day before I had to do an emergency stop from 35mph when some idiot decided that he could pull out of the gas station and cross 3 lanes of traffic in front of me and the wheels locked up and slid a bit with no "abs pump" feel in the brakes. My service guy (who is very nice) asked if they could keep it until tomorrow because in his words "the ABS isn't working quite right" I didn't get any kind of lights or alarms. Now I'm glad I mentioned it to him. I will update as soon as I hear from him.... just glad it's under warrenty!

 

Well, it took 10 days to get the part in and to do the repair, but I got my FEH back last week and it's braking just fine. According to the warranty invoice, it was a "Control ASY - ABS HY" and the part was $905.78 and it took 6 hours to do the work. Comments say further that they removed and replaced the "EHUC" including time to bleed system a couple times.

Anyway, I certainly would be interested to hear if anyone in the future runs into such a problem or if I'm just a fluke here on this. As mentioned, however everything seems to be working just fine again. The one cool thing about the repair is that the MPG guage was reset and after a cold Cleveland winter, my average had really come down quite a b it!

 

Glad to hear they have your car working again. Sorry to hear it takes 10 days to get the parts.

Are you aware that you can reset your mpg gauge anytime by holding in the SET button for a few seconds? I reset mine at every fillup or when I want to see how my mileage is at any given time.

Good luck - hope you have seen the last of your problems.

Ray