ABS BRAKES and traction control

[3.4grandam]

my 2001 3.4 grand am has reached about 54000 miles and at the same time the ABS traction control and service engine soon light came on. now i dont have ABS and the traction control is always off and i cant turn it back on. does anyone know whats wrong with my car.

[FormulaLT1]

Its one of 2 things. Either one of your ABS wheel sensor's has crapped out in which case you need to change the wheel bearing assembly or your VSS has been malfunctioning. Has your speedometer stopped working or does it appear to be off on the MPH?

John

[3.4grandam]

my mph arnt off and the speedometer is still workin

[FormulaLT1]

Well then most likely its your ABS wheel sensor. Check your wiring to each wheel and you may need to replace a bearing. Good Luck

John

[3.4grandam]

and wat does vss mean

[FormulaLT1]

Vehicle speed sensor. Also one thing didn't mention but most likely its not it is your ABS control module.

[Ridenour]

Do you notice any rumbling when driving down the road? Any pulsating sounds at certain speeds? Drive it, and have someone move around in the car listening at each wheel well. You could have a bad bearing, or, like john said, just a sensor.

[Hoags]

If your ABS is inop. you most likely will not have traction control, the TC works off the ABS system, as a wheel begins to spin the sensor picks up on this and will apply tbe brakes intermittently to the wheel that is spinning. This stpos the spin and allows the wheel to grab rather than just spin. When you get your ABS operating you will probably get the TC operating again.

[3.4grandam]

now the last few days wen i turn the car off all of the light will be off then wen i drive for alittle the lights come back on so i dunno wuts wrong

[Ridenour]

Originally Posted by 3.4grandam

now the last few days wen i turn the car off all of the light will be off then wen i drive for alittle the lights come back on so i dunno wuts wrong

I'm not quite sure I understand what you're saying. The lights should go off when you turn off your car. Are you saying they take a while to turn on after you start driving? Is it just your exterior lights? If that was the case, then it could be the DRL control unit, or the optical unit on your dash that picks up light to control the DRL unit. Or it could be battery or alternator related, but I'm not entirely sure what you mean. Could you be more specific?

[Forkliftguy]

Ridenour, I think he means when he's been driving and the abs warning has been on, once he shuts the car down then starts it up again every thing works fine for a bit. Then after a short time the warning comes back on.

This is typical of a bad connection/damaged wheel speed sensor. When the car is started and the abs system does it's routine check of the system, every thing appears to be ok. Once you start driving and hit bumps or go through puddles, etc., the faulty connection/wheel sensor screws up and the abs warning kicks.

I have a theory as to why the abs pump kicks on in some instances just before the abs warning comes on: As your driving and all is normal the system "sees" that all wheels are turning, but once you hit a bump or whatever the connection fails and the abs system thinks that that one wheel has locked up so it activates the abs to compensate but then detects that the brakes are not applied which in turn triggers a fault and shuts down the system activating the warning light. pheeewwwww.


Marc

[Ridenour]

LoL excellent explanation marc. Yeh I see what he meant now. And you're right on about everything - one of my sensors was bad enough so that everytime I hit ice or deep snow it would kick on the lights, but resets when I restart, and never comes on in normal weather.

[3.4grandam]

yea thats exactly wats happening so wut u guys r sayin is it just a loose connection pretty much and shouldnt do this come summer time, and if it is that will it hurt anything driving like that, like with out abs and traction control, its not sumthin that needs fixed emmediatly?

[Forkliftguy]

Well, I'm an advocate against abs/traction control because I feel all this technology is breeding poor drivers, so no you don't "need" to fix it. I would have to say though if someone else drives your car and is expecting the abs/traction to be working it could be dangerous for them. The system isn't critical to the car operating smoothly so you should be fine until it's fixed.

Marc

[Ridenour]

^ ^ Amen. First thing I do every time I hope in my GA is turn of the Trac control. I don't want my computer dicking around with slowing down wheel speed when it should be worrying about other things - I want to be in control of my wheel speed, and not have some bitchass PCM leaning out my A/F ratio to slow down my wheels when I don't want them slowed down . LoL