Questions about wheel speed sensor wire and CV axle after wreck

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by Spradilak, Dec 25, 2025 at 6:08 PM.

  1. Spradilak

    Spradilak Junior Member

    Joined:
    Dec 21, 2023
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    Location:
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    Vehicle:
    2008 Prius
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    Hoping to get more traction here than I did on reddit.

    Hello, first off this is a 2008 toyota prius. I fell asleep at the wheel one morning, woke up and barely hit a concrete divider. As in if i were 3 inches over i would have missed it. I had to replace most of the suspension components in the front driver side including the subframe. The wheel hit the divider and bent the control arm, sway bar link, shock and conpletely broke the axle, tie rod is fine.Everything went smooth except I feel like my cv axle may be too short.

    When the axle nut is tightened it makes this horrible noise close to the cup thats in the transmission and the wheel has a hard time turning. When the axle nut is tightened it pulls the axle out of the cup if that makes sense, and I feel like the components inside the cup are kinda disengaging. If i loosen the axle nut, the noise goes away. This is an aftermarket trakmotive cv axle. Going to try picking one up from napa to see if that fixes it, but does anyone have any ideas? What are the odds the force of this wreck damaged the transmission? The shaft completely broke out of the cup, only the cup remained in the transmission. I included a picture without the wheel before the repair aswell.

    Second question is this wheel speed sensor wire. I replaced the wheel speed sensor but after the connection before the fusebox, the wire is pretty damaged. My scanner says wheel speed sensor is still the fault. The other codes im pretty sure are because the battery was super low. No check engine light but abs and some others. In the image, the copper piece that I have circled, does that need to be connected the whole way through the wire? I've never seen inside an abs harness before. What about this wire would cause me to still have these lights, or perhaps something I haven't considered.

    Imgur link below for the video since reddit wont let me add it with pictures. Thanks for your time!


     

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  2. pasadena_commut

    pasadena_commut Senior Member

    Joined:
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    Location:
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    Vehicle:
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    Regarding the second question, bare wire like that in a bundle is usually a ground which runs the full length of the cable. What I cannot tell from that picture is if the two colored wires (and that ground) were also shielded. If that brown stuff is the outside of a layer of aluminum foil then it is shielded. If it isn't shielded in theory you could clean up the wiring, be sure there is continuity on each wire from one end to the other and it should work. If that bundle is shielded it might not work, or it might cause problems in other circuits from interference.

    Personally I would replace that cable, even if just with one from a wreck (where the hit was elsewhere), because who knows what sort of damage was done at the pins and elsewhere by the forces that mangled the cable.