Traction Control malfunction when turned off?

[stang99x]

I typically turn off the traction control system when I get in the car, unless it's raining outside. Saturday night I did as normal and turned it off a few seconds after starting the car. As I was doing other things driving down a side road (not playing on my phone, basically just not paying much atttention) I felt a jerky feeling and as a reaction let off the gas, didn't see any dummy lights on anything, it was dark so I figured I ran something over. As I then turned onto a highway and accelerated off, at about 50mph the traction light started flashing and the traction system began pulsating the brakes causing the car to jerk all over the road. Again, instinctively I let off and when I saw the trac light flashing I reached over and turned it back on and as soon as it was on, everything went back to normal. There were no further lights and no further unwanted braking pulsations. I haven't driven it with traction off since as I don't want to have that crap go on again doing highway speeds. Anyone else ever had this happen? There was no tirespin, no wet pavement, no conditions that would create a traction related issue. And again, this was with traction off.

 

[Tron84]

I typically turn off the traction control system when I get in the car, unless it's raining outside. Saturday night I did as normal and turned it off a few seconds after starting the car. As I was doing other things driving down a side road (not playing on my phone, basically just not paying much atttention) I felt a jerky feeling and as a reaction let off the gas, didn't see any dummy lights on anything, it was dark so I figured I ran something over. As I then turned onto a highway and accelerated off, at about 50mph the traction light started flashing and the traction system began pulsating the brakes causing the car to jerk all over the road. Again, instinctively I let off and when I saw the trac light flashing I reached over and turned it back on and as soon as it was on, everything went back to normal. There were no further lights and no further unwanted braking pulsations. I haven't driven it with traction off since as I don't want to have that crap go on again doing highway speeds. Anyone else ever had this happen? There was no tirespin, no wet pavement, no conditions that would create a traction related issue. And again, this was with traction off.

Mine has done this 2 or 3 times in the 3 years I've owned the car, but mine did it when I forgot to turn the TC off.

 

[03Sssnake]

I have had something similar happen, but I was turning TC back on, hwy speed around 65 mph. Looked like it was about to start raining so I turned TC back on, car felt like it lurched and jerked all over the road. This has never happened again, but left me scratching my head, didn't store any codes either.

 

[Sizeth3]

I had this happen and it freaked me out, I got out and checked my lug nuts as I thought a wheel was falling off.

 

[Need 04 Wine]

Not sure if these cars are the same or not, but I hade a car do this to me.

Turns out the wheel speed sensor was malfunctioning. If you look on the back side of your rotor there will be a almost gear looking marking on it running the circumference of the rotor. There should be a sensor there mounted to the control arm somewhere. Un plug it and turn on the car, now use an OHM meter and check what you get and each front tire, then each rear tire. Of one of them is off start checking the harness for damage.

In my instance the front driver harness read 4.5OHM where as the passenger side read 1.0 Ohm this was fooling the car into thinking that there was slide or spin happening at that corner, which would cause very eratic traction control events.

In the case you describing I would suspect the rear of the car first..

Hopefully Zemiedic will find this he is, well very knowledgable when it comes to a car

 

[choate]

Mine has done this 2 or 3 times in the 3 years I've owned the car, but mine did it when I forgot to turn the TC off.

Joking or serious. Hmmmmm

 

[Tron84]

Joking or serious. Hmmmmm

Serious. The couple times my car has done it was shortly after starting the car and driving without turning off TC

 

[SHIFTYBUSINESS]

Mine did it once in 28000mi, exactly as you described. There was a thread on this subject on Allfordmustangs site, quite a few people have had this happen.

 

[kona 199]

just have your tuner revise the tune and turn all that crap off.

 

[Tron84]

just have your tuner revise the tune and turn all that crap off.

They can do they but the problem is that ABS is turned off as well, most people don't want that for street driving

 

[Ha whut]

last month I picked up a 2011 gt. I just had this happen 2 days ago. I had traction control on and got on the throttle on an empty on ramp, and out of nowhere the tc light starts flashing and the breaks start pulsating very hard. more towards the front driver, and was hard to control the car at speeds with it breaking hard on and off to one side. freaked me out havnt got on it since.

 

[stang99x]

last month I picked up a 2011 gt. I just had this happen 2 days ago. I had traction control on and got on the throttle on an empty on ramp, and out of nowhere the tc light starts flashing and the breaks start pulsating very hard. more towards the front driver, and was hard to control the car at speeds with it breaking hard on and off to one side. freaked me out havnt got on it since.

Based on responses I have received on multiple forums this sounds like a once in every 15th blue moon occurrence. It doesn't seem to be related to throttle percentage or even whether or not the system is on or off so much as it is just a random malfunction of the system that goes away by either restarting the car (sounds like microsoft programmed it eh?) or toggling the system on/off. I have attempted to replicate the problem but it has not happened again. I have pretty much written it off as an "oh shit" malfunction.

I had a 2005 Lincoln Aviator brand new off the lot in 2005 and I had a malfunction once when driving down the highway the brake system totally failed, pedal to the floor...abs pulsating....and no ability to slow down. Rolled to a stop, turned if off and then on and it never happened again as long as I had it (4 years and 56k miles) It seems as if there are just occasional failures in that brake system that we should all hope don't occur at the wrong time.

 

[PC03GT]

Had that shit happen to me last weekend, I was pulling in my driveway, the traction control came on and the wheel spin light. It was drizzling out, it hasn't happened since.