My daughter bought a 1995 Impreza (EJ18) with the ABS light on. Brakes work great.

 

Now that winter is here I thought maybe we should see if we can fix the ABS. I know nothing about the ABS system, only that each wheel has a sensor. The car has 178,000 miles on it.

 

How do you determine where the problem is?

There is probably a procedure to pinpoint which wheel nut I'm not familiar with it. My guess is one of the tone wheels has a crack which a visible check should show the bad wheel. 

 

From another forum:

 

"A lot of times when these lights come one there is just too much brake dust stuck to the sensor (It is a magnet) and the sensor can no longer read the exciter ring.

Pull all 4 brakes and rotors and check the sensors. If one or more is full of little metal things clean it off with brake cleaner, reset battery and drive. You will know as soon as you break the 5 mph mark wether or not it is fixed."

Edited November 6, 20178 yr by john in KY

I just pulled it into the garage and checked the fuse. It was completely missing. Since the rear defroster is broken i took that fuse and put it in the ABS solenoid spot. The spot for the Cruise (ABS) spot is also empty but this car doesn’t have cruise control so maybe we don’t need a fuse there? I haven’t taken it out for a test drive yet to see if the ABS light has gone out.

I got the right front sensor out after a struggle and cleaned it up. Didn’t look dirty. Worked on getting left front out but is even more stubborn. Put some PB blaster penetrating fluid on it and will try again in a few days.

 

Took it out for a test drive without resetting battery and ABS light was still on.

you will have to clear the codes in order for the light to go out (even if it is fixed).. most likely by disconnecting the battery on this one, unless you have an OBDII port and a code reader to reset things - not sure, but I don't think the 1995 EJ18 had the OBDII yet..

Definitely no OBD2 port. It has the plugs under the dash you connect together and then the light flashes a code.

ABS can be the first system that will pop a warning light if there's a charging/battery problem. Check that and refresh every ground connection you can find.

Good news! Problem solved. The only thing wrong was missing fuses. Yesterday I checked to see if the fuses were burned out and discovered both ABS fuses were missing. I took the 20 amp fuse from the rear defroster since it has a broken connection but didn’t have a spare 10 amp fuse for the other slot. I got spares today and put one in. I started the car up and was delighted to see that the ABS light had not come on. Took it for a little test drive and the ABS is working beautifully on the fresh snow. Thanks everyone for your help.