ABS Sensor Connector Replacement


#1

Do you have cracked, broken, or otherwise questionable ABS sensor connectors? Is the wiring suspect on your car because nothing else seems to be fixing the problem? Fortunately, there’s a solution. It isn’t cheap, but BMW sells crash repair cables that have a new connector on the end. The part number is 61131390540 and FCP Euro (among others) sell them. They’re rather spendy at about $81 as of writing, but I’ve already installed two in the front of the car successfully.

To install them, you can either lop off the end of the cable before it’s wrapped into the harness or run them back to the ABS computer. The sensor wires are two approximately 20 gauge wires encased in a rubber sheath. I chose to unwrap the harness from the front right corner all the way back to the fuse box, re-wrap in the new cables, and fish the cables through the fuse box and firewall grommet. I then soldered and heat shrinked them in right ahead of the ABS computer connector. This took about 6 hours including lots of time upside down under the dash and a fair share of my week’s cursing budget.

The rear sensor connectors are less likely to be cracked or damaged, but the rear portion of the body harness is susceptible to damage because it runs along the driver’s seat and past the dead pedal area. As I have a left rear ABS sensor issue that I can’t solve despite plenty of parts swapping, I’ll be tackling that next.


#2

Several of my sensor connectors were in such bad shape that they crumbled into bits when I tried to pull them apart to reseat them. Those that failed I replaced with basic spade connectors and wrapped with electrical tape.


#3

Did you also replace the sensor side of the connector pair?


#4

If I understand you correctly, you’re saying “replace both the male and female side.” Then yes. I just clipped off the crumbling connectors, stripped a bit of wire, and put on the spade connectors.