The ABS light came on during a cross country trip (Phoenix to Michigan), which probably happened somewhere around Chicago / Gary area. Although it could have happened around any of the cities we drove thru as there was road construction and poor roads in all of them.
I thought it was going to be the rear wheel sensor problem, but nothing seemed to be wrong with the rear wheels. The rear connectors didn't have corrosion either, so what was it?? I checked all 4 wheels but didn't see anything obvious.
In the end I gave up and took it Autozone for a code read, but their reader only does engine codes, not brake system codes.
So we took it to the dealer and had to fork over $130 for the code read and their "free" 36 point inspection. They did say it was the front left sensor, so I had a closer look and lo and behold they were right...

Somewhere, we must have hit either some tire debris or went thru a bunch of broken concrete because the front bumper has a lot of gouges in it - not paint chips, deep gouges



Gouges in yellow circles

Then the cable right next to the sensor was cut half way thru - whatever it was must have got tangled with the tire. That part of the cable is well hidden from debris.



Cut shown in red circle

The dealer wanted something like $400 to fix it, so I left saying I would think about it and ordered a replacement part from RockAuto and bought a panel removal tool from Autozone.
Fortunately on this trip I took a socket set, torque wrench and Jack with me, just in case, so I could do the repair 2000 miles from home. Rockauto has quite a selection of these parts ranging from $15 to $256 ???
I decided against the cheap part - something is wrong when it's that cheap, so I ended up ordering the Beck Arnley part shown, because it was a name I had seen before and also a bunch of 7mm "Toyota" plastic rivets.
Good job too as most of the rivets holding the inner plastic mudguard in place broke off during removal - 10 year old plastic, what can you say.
The panel removal tool worked well getting the harness off and installing the new part worked nicely too. Sometimes the parts you get from Rockauto don't fit that well, but this one did.

The ABS light went off as soon as the car got to 10 mph, so that worked out well.
The paint gouges will remain. not sure there is a good fix for that. They will just be "experience" marks.

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That is a bummer with all the road construction and the toll it takes on our rides. For $130 to have a code read it is worth buying a little scanner like this:


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That's a pretty comprehensive scanner for $89. First vehicle specific download is free. Only $10 for each additional vehicle. Makes me regret buying the Innova 3030 for $50 (which I think scans only emissions codes.)

 

I do like the innova scanners also. The Autels have impressed me though. I have their bigger scan tool the ms908pro for my work and really like its features. But this one being a hand held unit and the price is pretty tempting.

 

Yeah, I'm almost tempted to sell my Innova because downloads are $99 per car, annually.

 

That would have been handy. I wouldn't know which one to pick, but I have put this on my xmas list. (For a child of mine to give to dear old dad)
Thanks for the link