BMW/MINI wheel speed sensor testing

[Chris]

So this is a pretty common issue with BMW's and Mini's, and my fiancee's Mini has the ABS light on most of the time, but it will go off occasionally. I've cleaned all 4 wheel speed sensors and still have the ABS light on. I have tested each sensor at the wheel by unplugging the sensor at the connection point (blue plug) and placing my multimeter on the small probes inside each sensor wire connector. I set the meter to OHM's and the meter reads 1. Once I touch the probes in the sensor, it remains at 1. I tried spinning the wheel while having the multimeter connected, because it is supposed to generate a reading that fluctuates, and still no change on the meter- stays at 1. This last step involving turning the wheels to generate a reading only has been on the front wheels- I haven't had time to test the rears.

So the question is, am I testing this correct? If the multimeter doesn't change its reading at all, is the sensor bad? I should know more next weekend after I can test the rear sensors, but I feel that I should have got a reading of some kind on at least one of the two front sensors.

Below are some links I read prior to trying all of this. Thanks for any advice!


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[Jake]

I'm going to be of no help in troubleshooting, but I'd be interested to follow along with the solution if you find it. My E34 throws the ABS light a lot, and I'm guessing it's a WSS. Haven't actually cleaned them yet so that is step one.