Repair-It

For the past couple years, I have been having an issue with the ABS light on the Elise. This thread is a placeholder for me to document my attempts to fix it.

I had the Lotus dealer read the code when my car was there for the oil line recall and the issue did not appear to be linked to a specific wheel speed sensor. It was more of a general issue with the control module. They didn't charge me for the code reading, but it also wasn't very helpful.

I have tried spraying all of the electrical connections to the wheel speed sensor and the control module with Deoxit, as some Lotustalk forum members recommended. This didn't help anything.

The light seems to come on most frequently after the car has been sitting a while (comes on 100% of the time within the first 5 minutes of driving), and the probability of it coming on again decreases with each successive hot restart on a given day (sometimes does not come on again at all).

I found a company in Idaho that is willing to rebuild the module for $130 with a 5 year warranty against future failure. Apparently the ABS module, Kelsey-Hayes model 430, was also used on the Ford Windstar. I love what a jumbled parts bin mess this car can be sometimes. At least it means this is going to be cheap to rebuild. The only crappy thing is that you have to remove or at least partially loosen the front clam of the car to get the module out. What would have been a 30 minute job on a conventional front engine car with a normal hood becomes like an all day project. I admit this is a bit of a shot in the dark without knowing the codes, but module failure seems to be the most common issue reported on the forums.

The Lotus ABS codes can only be read by the factory scanner that is like 2 grand if you can even get one.

Checking in 6 years later. I made a little progress thanks to some help from LotusTalk members who discovered a way to communicate with the ABS module via the terminal application. I was able to read the codes then reset them, run the car and read again. I’m down to C0121 which means the ABS module is likely to need a rebuild. This involves resoldering some joints on the circuit board. It turns out my 2018 hunch was correct but it was nice to get confirmation.

Most relaxed repair approach ever.

I had to wait for the community to come up with a solution that I could handle.

I successfully removed the ABS module yesterday. It's now packaged up and ready to send to Module Masters in Idaho. The cost of the rebuild is $150 plus shipping.