ABS Sensor - rear, leave it unplugged?

[Andyp]

Good morning,

In the middle of doing all the bushings on my 89 325i, and I had a bear of a time removing the rear ABS sensors, destroying them both in the process.

I dont want to delete the ABS, but I also dont want to shell out $200 for two new sensors. Is it possible to just leave these two sensors unplugged? Will the ABS system still work based on the signals from the front sensors?

I'm assuming this will lead to me having a light on the dash, and thats OK, but I don't want to be inadvertently disabling the ABS system.

[BlackSpeed66]

Yep there will definitely be a light on your dash. The system does a check each time you start the car - in order for it to work at all, each sensor has to "talk" to the computer so that "it" knows what's going on.

If you don't want to spring for a new sensor, maybe find some used ones at a junkyard. You may wind up breaking those in the process trying to remove them. A quick search on RockAuto shows some aftermarket sensors for $56/ea. There you go!

[Klug]

You could either pull the ABS bulb out of the cluster or get new sensors.

Did the ABS work before you removed them? If not, there is a thread that is buried here about fixing the fuseable link in the ABS relay. Usually fixes the ABS light and gets it working again. Ran without ABS for years before I discovered the thread.