Bongo Fury

Recently fitted some LED tail/brake light bulbs and soon noticed that the ABS warning light kept coming on. A quick search pointed to a couple of threads reporting the same problem but no solution apart from going back to standard bulbs.

So two questions really; if the ABS warning light is on does this necessarily mean it's not working? ( I'm guessing 'yes') and is there any way to cure this without going back to the standard bulbs?

Thanks for any input!

This is only a guess, but LED's don't draw any current until the voltage across them exceeds about 2-3 volts. Now the ABS unit monitors the lamps and I suspect it expects to see a small current drawn thru the lamps at a low voltage - not sufficent to light them however. So you could try connecting a small 5W bulb across the brake lights so that the ABS circuit can see the expected current being drawn - the lamp need not be visible, it won't even light when the ABS unit is checking, but it will come on when the brakes are applied of course.

Thanks for that. Actually, now you come to mention it, I notice a dim glow from the LEDs when the ignition is on. Presumably the check you refer to.

I had considered another bulb in parallel as you suggest, but wondered if there was a more elegant solution.