Wow, this is an old thread, I cannot believe it has been over 10 years since I originally posted this, but thought I would just share here instead of a new thread.

That '85 380SE is long gone. I never did figure out the ABS issue on that, but I later purchased a '88 300SEL in October of 2008, which we actually still own. It is now my moms car as I gave it to her around 2012.

The ABS brakes were fine until my dad changed the front brake pads around 2010, then it started doing the same thing as my 380SE. When going down the drive going slow, the ABS would activate and kick the pedal up then during driving the light would eventually come on. It has went through another set of pads since then and wearing down the pads never changed anything. I am guessing he damaged a connector or something when replacing the pads. It is going to their mechanic soon for some front-end work so I may have him check the ABS connectors as well if he can and perhaps clean them and see if that helps. I think 6 years is long enough to be dealing with this.