Traction control light comes even when not hard cornering?
 

Hey guys,


This problem has come to me ever since two days. My car has a rocket bunny kit with wider wheels so I'm not sure if this happened because of the wider wheels but the car was just fine with the new wide wheels for over a week. Anywho, I started and warmed her up, I reversed out of the garage and as soon as I steered I heard a bit of a bang in the front, felt like the steering rack, the usual sound of metal not moving for a while and then moving it after a long amount of time, car is usually parked in shade and only driven in weekends. That bang made me a bit curious to know what it might be but I ignored it anyways. Then, as soon as I was in the highway the car would feel a bit wobbly as the steering wheel is not just feeling right. I ignored it and when I came to a corner to go up a bridge, the traction control starts to come up and lights up every single second and the usual ABS sound coming, the car braking and so on. At that time I was scared and did not know what to do so the first thing I did was to go to my alignment shop and have the car checked, everything was perfectly correct, they checked the tie rods, the alignment, the steering rack, everything was okay.

Today, I decided to fit my old wheel setup (pre rocket bunny) just for the sake of knowing whether this is because of the wide wheels or not and the same thing happened, it would happen at hard cornering and sometimes even not-so-hard cornering, in the past I have been hard cornering much much more than what I tried and the traction light never ever came up.

I'm not sure what the cause is, if it's something out of my hands then I have to take it to the dealership otherwise someone may have had the same experience and could chime in and help at least.

Thanks.

Did you try turning off the DTC/ASC by holding down the button? If that still caused it to happen, did you try the parking brake startup sequence to disable all assists?

If yes to both of these questions, I'd put the stock wheels on it and take it to the dealership. It could be a major mechanical problem with the rear diff (locked) or a strange electrical fault.

I tried turning off the DTC, still happened. Parking brake startup sequence I have not yet tried but please enlighten me with the steps.

are your tires front/rear much different in diameter? The ABS sound (if you're not locking them up yourself from hard braking, etc) is the stability computer trying to make a correction.

Search for the "pedal dance" to disable everything. I wouldn't recommend doing this for daily driving, but could be helpful to troubleshoot since it disables everything related to stability control.

Here's a video of the pedal dance. If your wheels are a different overall diameter (wheel + tire) the lights would probably come on in a straight line. Sounds like it only happens when turning, right?

[ame]http://youtu.be/CWXv7UNA7hg[/ame]

Be wary. The pedal dance turns off all assists except ABS and should only be used for hooning in a safe environment. It automatically resets back to normal the next time you start the car.

Fronts 18x9.5"

Rears 18x11"

If by diameter you mean are in different sizes (18 and 17 for example) then no, every wheel setup I have for this car are all the same sizes in diameter.

I don't think it has anything to do with the tire sizes not being the same in front as to the rear? Hell, I don't even think it matters if the rear tires are different than the front tires in terms of the tread style or brand.

ABS sound comes when cornering without me even braking.

Yeah I could use it to narrow down what this issue could be, whether mechanical or electrical.


Straight is just fine but the car would feel a bit wobbly even when overtaking cars, ever used a logitech g27 steering wheel? know that force feedback when you're turning and the steering wheel wants to go back to the middle? same thing happens when I try to overtake cars too just not too notice-able.

I'll try the pedal dance and see if the problem still persists.

check your front suspension,
my friend had the same problem and it turned out one of his front suspension components was slightly bent.

when he was turning faster then 20mph or actually even slower his traction light would go on and car would wobble like crazy.

I'm not referring to rim diameter, I'm referring to tire diameter, meaning the outermost edge of the tire. The most exact way to find this is to use a measuring tape to get circumference, and then math it to get diameter.

Consider a drag car using 18" front wheels with tiny little tires with a 22" total diameter, and tiny 15" rear wheels with gigantic tires at 32" diameter.

Point is, if there is enough difference, they will rotate at slightly different speeds, which could look like a problem to the CPU. When you turn, there's another speed difference between the inner and outer wheels. The CPU knows that you're making a turn from the various sensors, but if the wheel speed between the inner rear and outer front tire is even greater than expected parameters, again it might look like a problem to the CPU.

Mine would do the same thing but wouldn't wobble at all, the steering wheel would feel just fine when turning but the traction light comes on and that annoying ABS sound and braking happens. I will check on the front suspension though, the wobble I was mentioning is when overtaking in terms of the steering wheel trying to force itself to go back to the middle or when trying to corner had/semi-hard the rear feels wobbly as in I know the car used to be much more better at being stable when cornering and not feel a bit wobbly in the rear.

Why do people do the pedal dance when you can just hold the stability control button down for more than 3 seconds to get the same results? Maybe like to dance with your car?

Example at 1:41
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj7WIlliwgQ"]Subaru BRZ drift secrets, stability control, VSC and TRC settings - YouTube[/ame]

Hmmm,

I'm running 255/35 for rears and 225/40 for the fronts, is this the issue?

I actually thought about that when going for the bigger tires at the back, now you've reminded me! I thought hmmm, there's a notice-able difference in tire sizes, won't this be an issue?

That's what I did in terms of turning off the DTC, held that button for 3 seconds and then 3 lights came up indicating that the traction is off.

Holding the button down for 3 seconds isnt the same as doing the pedal dance

Then problem narrowed down:

1- Suspension/suspension components have to be checked on all sides.
2- Tire sizes
3- re-check the steering rack for something suspicious.

EDIT: searched google and saw that there was a guy with a different car having the same issues when tracking, tires had different diameters, especially that the 225s I'm running in the front are a bit stretched compared to the rears which are not at all. I'll have the tires changed and then let you guys know. Thank you everyone for the help! really appreciate it.