What is ABS Bleeding and How to Choose an ABS Bleed Scan Tool?

1. What Does ABS Mean on a Car?

ABS (Anti-lock Braking System), is an active anti-skid braking system, widely used in vehicles such as cars, motorcycles, trucks, buses, airplane, etc. . Originally, the braking system is purely hydraulic. When the driver steps on the brake pedal, the brake fluid in the brake system transfers the hydraulic pressure to each wheel cylinder, thereby generating braking force and decelerating the vehicle. The Antilock Brake System is based on the traditional pure hydraulic braking system. There are four wheel speed sensors monitoring the four tires on the vehicle, once any sensor detects that a tire is about to lock, the system controls the tires to be rolling and sliding by increasing the pressure - maintaining the pressure - decreasing the pressure to control the direction during an emergency braking, so that the vehicle can stop smoothly.

Once you feel that the brake pedal become spongy or it take longer than usual to stop your car ,you can try to fix this issue with ABS brake bleeding.

2. What is ABS Bleeding?

If there is air gets into the oil circuit in the brake system, the pressure generated by the brake pedal firstly compresses the air instead of the brake fluid, you can clearly feel the brake pedal getting spongy when stepping on it, which means the system does not provide the direct force for braking, and probably causes serious consequences on the driving safety. When the brake fluid or components in the braking system is replaced during maintenance or repair, some air usually remains in the oil circuit, in these conditions, it is a must to bleed the ABS to eliminate the air in the braking system for safety concern.

The oil circuit in the vehicle braking system is a closed circuit, that’s the reason why you need to make sure the brake fluid is circulating if you want to completely push the air out of the system. In addition to the pipeline, the ABS includes the ABS pump and various solenoid valves in the ABS pump. If there is any air enters the ABS pump or the solenoid valves, the normal bleeding through the braking system cannot fully eliminate the air. The normal braking system can open the bleeding valve on each wheel cylinder, together with stepping on the brake pedal to bleed. While ABS needs to start the ABS pump and activate the solenoid valves manually for bleeding.

3. Best Scan Tool with ABS Bleeding

In the practical maintenance or repair, the most commonly used method to bleed the braking system is noramally the manual bleeding, but if you want to make ABS bleeding get a better result, you will need a diagnostic scan tool as a helper. The difference between the bleeding ABS manually and the bleeding ABS with a scanner is that the manual ABS bleeding can only bleed the air in the pipelines of the braking system, but cannot bleed the air in the solenoid valves and pipelines inside the ABS pump. With a diagnostic scan tool, the solenoid valves in th ABS pump will be activated to form a complete and smooth oil circuit, so as to smoothly and completely bleed the entire system.

In this article, we will show you 3 excellent OBD2 Scanners with ABS auto bleed functions. And of course, the following tools can both carry out the following duties:

– Caliper Service

– Provide Brake Pad Life

– Provide SRS Codes and definitions

– Reset SRS Codes

Foxwell NT530 is OE-Level Bi-Directional Scanner for $179. Foxwell NT530 a great tool for DIYers and enthusiasts as it provides you reliable assistance to fix the issues on your vehicle.

Foxwell NT809 is a excellent mid-to-high-level tool for $459 with advanced hardware and a touchscreen, so you can enjoy a fast and reliable diagnostic journey.

Foxwell GT60 Plus is the premium tool on featured in this article, equipped with a full range of dealership level features and abilities. Foxwell GT60 Plus is excellent option for workwhop.

For more Foxwell OBD2 scanners with ABS Bleeding function, please refer to Buyers Guide.

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