JC in XTC5

OK, read most of this and I have some questions.

1 - What were the road conditions? This time of year can be quite slippery especially with a 400HP car with (I assume) summer tires.

2 - As soon as he "Enabled TC or AH"? TC and AH are enabled by default. You need to disable it even to enter Comp mode. Did he disable it? Then stomp on the gas in 4th gear? That would prevent TC to save the rear from coming around which is what happens when the wheels break loose. Many people disable TC/AH to experience the full power of the car.

3 - Never heard any similar issue on this forum. I've seen complaints of the EBCM faults, but none relating to crashes. As indicated if the system detects any sensor faults it will disable TC/AH AND in most cases ABS as well.

4 - The Black Box (Airbag Control Module) will store data prior to the airbags deploying. It will provide information that should confirm that the EBCM was operating erroneously as well as what the driver inputs were.

Just because witnesses saw him traveling at ~ 70 MPH does not mean they can say whether there was a sudden throttle increase that resulted in the car breaking it's rear end as they wouldn't have seen him accelerate. Many experienced driver's on this forum have reported that is what happens when they disable AH/TC and decide (while moving) to open it up a bit. The back end swung around before they knew what hit them and they ended up down a ditch. I can't say this is what happened to your friend but it would one of my lines of investigation unless there was clear evidence of a mechanical or systems failure.

NOWUCME

I don't see how anyone can expect to solve a question(s) or problem(s) like this here on the Forum. If your friend thinks he has a case tell him to hire an attorney who can find an automotive expert to support what "he" thinks happened. At some point that's what he would have to do to get any money out of anybody. Would probably cost him more than the car and get nothing.
Otherwise take the insurance money and buy a Honda.

I personally don't believe any car would react that way if he were slaming the breaks on to prevent it.

Cocked and Locked

Wise recommendation.

That'll look good on a headstone.

Blue Angel

1. Clear clean road, cold temps but well above freezing. GoodYear F1s.

2. He normally disables TC/AH to keep the car from acting up. He doesn't remember disabling TC/AH before this incident.

3. Quote myself from an earlier post in this thread:

4. Airbags did not deploy, but someone suggested that the box would record even if it thought the car was going to crash from sensor inputs. The yaw sensor should have been going crazy when this happened. We are going to look at having this box read at a local dealer and see what it says.

Blue Angel

I am now dumber after reading that...

RichieRichZ06

Blue Angel...Most dealers will not be able to access the info. It is not the same as reading recorded info off thePCM from the Tech II. There is different equipment that is needed to do so and supposedly the dealer can not do it without being instructed to by a higher power.

AC54ME

While the following is not Corvette related, it provides, first hand, some activities that your friend should undertake if he is going to pursue legal action:

I had an accident in my Jeep Grand Cherokee Ltd on 1-17-04.

I was hit from behind while stopped at a stop light.

The force of the accident broke the back of the drivers seat - thus I ended up in the rear seat.

I have undergone 10 major surgeries, with at least two more required due to the seat back breaking.

A few months following the accident, and from comments the doctors treating me made, I decided to do some investigation on the history of seat back failures.

In the meantime I had the Jeep fixed, but for some reason I felt compelled to keep the broken seat.

During the time prior proceeding my investigation I also sold the Jeep (I was definitely afraid to ride in it after the accident). As a note, I also owned another Jeep grand Cherokee Ltd, and sold it for the same reason.

Following my investigation (WEB searches) I found the seat breaking to be a common occurrence. In addition, vehicle manufactures have never given consideration to this issue - they appear to provide a person hitting another vehicle/object plenty of protection via seat & shoulder belts, air bags, break- away steering wheels, etc., but minimal consideration to protecting one that is hit from the rear.

I eventually contacted a law firm that specializes in the matter of broken seat backs.

The first question was "do I have the vehicle"?

Next "has the vehicle been repaired"?

Next "has the vehicle been in your, or another's possession since the accident"?

It is PARAMOUNT that your friend NOT ALLOW anyone to repair the vehicle if he is going to solicit legal assistance.

It is also imperative that he not allow the vehicle to be out of his immediate control (physical) UNLESS the location where it is located provided security for the vehicle (I.e., no one could mess with it while it was there).

And most important - pictures, pictures, pictures, along with signed and notarized statements from any wittinesses that saw the accident.

Find a good, well established lawyer/law group that specializes in the specific area of vehicle safety issues, preferable one that has a track record with the Vette issue your friend feels contributed to his particular situation.

Hope this assists, and if the unit in the Vette was a contributing factor to the accident, I hope he pursues the matter via legal means.

Blue Angel

That figures... so is this information witheld from the public, only to be used in the court of law to a) prove the driver guilty, or b) cover GM's @$$?

If there's anything else you can find out regarding how we could be able to access this information it would be greatly appreciated! Do you work for cash under the table?

Thanks for your help!

Blue Angel

I'm sorry to hear that.

A guy I know was rearended by a military LAV (Light Armor Vehicle) while sitting at a stoplight in his late 80's pickup that only had a bench seat, no headrests. His head was cut open at the back from hitting the box of the truck after it went through the rear window. Those LAVs weigh anywhere from 20,000 lbs on up and it was travelling at over 60 km/h (37 MPH) when it hit. His truck stopped 150 feet past the intersection after hitting a parked car. He was unconsious.

He now walks with a cane, wears a neck brace and has some kind of spinal injections once a week to "numb" his lower body. His left arm feels like it's on fire most of the time.

The Canadian Gov't or Military put up red tape on his case for over 10 years, basically hoping he'd either die or get caught doing something to prove he wasn't injured by the many undercover spies that were following him. The case finally settled, but his life is forever ruined.

I will make sure we follow this advice to the letter. The car (and most of its parts) are in his posession. It sat overnight inside a locked bay at the towing company before being dropped off at his parent's shop, where it is secure inside.

I've taken pics of the car, his injuries, the accident scene... maybe I'll take more of the car just for the sake of having them.

A lawyer was reccomended. We'll have to see about this one... it's going to take a pretty strong case to justify legal action against anyone. If anything, the cost of repairing the car and the charges laid against the driver are the only things we'd like to see come out of this. Nobody's looking to get rich here.

Thank you for your great advice. It may not be Corvette specific, but it sure will keep him from making any mistakes with the "evidence".

NocarbutaVetteforme

You know,this is BS. So many want to question and instantly insist that the driver was at fault. What should be stated first of all is that the damn AH/TCS problem should be fixed by GM. Is there any denying that the ABS function doesn't work once these lights come on? It is a proven fact that ABS shortens the distance to come to a complete stop versus non-ABS. It is also a proven fact that ABS is instrumental in stopping in harsh weather conditions. So, given this information and also given the fact that it is a well known problem with the C5s why hasn't GM stepped up to the plate to fix/correct the problem? Money is the answer!! Now let's just suppose that we have a driver who isn't as big of a Corvette enthusiast than most on this forum, and let's assume that this person has the lights come on. Well, more than likely this same person won't realize that he/she no longer has ABS capabilities. SO this person takes his car for a drive and during this drive he/she has to apply the brakes to avoid an accident. Well now instead of being able to stop before he has the accident he now is ## feet into the accident. My point is that his car no longer stops the way it should be stopping if he had a proper working ABS system. We get recalls all the time from stuff alot more trivial than this. As stated earlier, it will take accidents reported as a result of this problem. GM could step up to the plate and admit that it has a problem and do a voluntary repair/recall to for the problem. This forum is a small number of the total Corvettes sold but it does represent some of your more enthusiastic owners. GM uses this board to gain insights into what is going on in the Corvette world and thus they know about this problem. They need to step up to the plate and do the right thing. It might just work out in their favor and show the general public that they do care about your safety!!!

Y2Kvert4me

I think you killed any chance of winning any sort of suit just by what's already been stated here.

He knew the car had a problem with the AH system, and as you said "normally shut AH off" because of this....but knowing that it had a problem, HE decided to drive the car anyways, and may have "forgot" to turn the faulty system off before driving that particular time.

That puts the blame squarely on his shoulders, not GM's.

Even if he could get the data off the SDM, and it somehow proved it wasn't driver error that spun the car out, it is still his fault for continuing to drive it knowing it was malfunctioning.

I can believe the AH system has the potential to do this, and it's sad it had to happen this way...but if you want to ignore problems with your car, you do so at your own risk.

RichieRichZ06

I am playing Devils Advocate here only so don't jump my chit over it, but...
#1: This is far from a well known fact. Just because there are a few stories on CF about it, does not make it well known to anybody. Remember, CF is just a sampling of Corvette owners. Also the stories that you read on here are somewhat jaded because you normally only hear of the bad stuff, which can "snowball" out of control. Once a few people read one mans story it all the sudden becomes a major issue that everybody is having.

#2: By your reasoning, everybody on CF should know about every aspect of their car because of the stories they read on here. So if the ABS/AH/TC light is on, most people know that there is a problem with the car and it may be a safety issue due to them being so enthusiastic about their cars.

#3: If GM reads about 3 or 4 people having this problem, they are not going to recall every car. In the other EBCM thread that people keep referring back to, there is less than a handfull of people that have had this problem. Just for simple math lets say that there is only 750,000 C5's on the road and even 75 people have the problem. That is only .0001 % of people that have experienced the problem and only a small fraction of them resulted in an accident. You probably have a better chance of getting hit by the idiot on the freeway next to you on the way home from work.

Remember, this was all just to give the opposite point of view and I do not absolutley believe one way or the other what actually happened.

I truely hope that this gets worked out by the owner of the car and if the car was at fault, then he is compensated very well by it. I am very glad that it did not turn out worse and that he is OK. I will be staying tuned for the outcome, as I have stated before, this had peaked my interests.

RichieRichZ06

If it is not too devistating for your buddy, I (we) would like to see the pics of the car. I do understand if he does not want his car all over the internet though.

gpracer1

Actually its 75 people .01%
750 people would be 0.1%
7500 1.0%
But who is counting.
What are they gonna recall anyhow? The ECBM or the yaw sensor, Or any of the other sensors that can contribute.
They cant recall the ABS system because one wheel bearing/sensor went bad and wasnt replaced and driven anyhow.

Rob 99

While this is a very interesting read, i would much rather have the Black Box facts, that may well have the answers as to what happened.
I would think the ins co would want to see it also especially if they have a police report leaning towards some type of mech failure and/or driver error that maybe will take the liability of the claim from them.
If the ins co or police to not access the Black Box i as owner would start the procedure to do so, especially if i knew i did nothing wrong.

NocarbutaVetteforme

Oh no, I think everyone is entitled to their opinion and being the devils advocate of a topic is actually a very good thing. How else can you have a logical discussion if you don't have questions? If you do a search of the topic on "ABS AH you will get a pretty good listing of how many people have experienced this problem. There are actually 14 pages on the thread in question but the total for all people who have experienced this issue hasn't been totaled. But to get the correct corrolation, you can't use the total number of C5 Corvettes as a representative of the total amount of members on the forum. The actual total number of C5s produced is 214651. Now I have no idea of how many people we have on the forum but if we say that we have 10% of the total number of C5s as a starting point then we have 21465 as a number we can use to represent the number of C5 forum members. Now I don't have the exact number of members who have experienced this but if we take the number of people who experienced this on page one of that thread and then multiply that by the number of pages we get a rough estimate of 168. Now if you take that percent and then use it against the total number of C5s you get a total of 1680. Now the number of members who have experienced this problem is actually larger than this due to the fact I only used one thread for my numbers. The more members we add to this total the higher number we get as a rough estimate.

A rebuttal of your anwers is a follows:
1. Actually the members on this board represent a very good cross-section of Corvette owners who happen to know more about Corvettes than your typical owners hence why you see so many questions being asked and so many answers from alot of experts. And since this topic is about a problem you can eliminate the need for any positive posts pertaining to this topic, which of course you couldn't have a positive post about losing your ABS.

2. Based on the fact that you have more informed Corvette owners on this site than the tpical owner I would venture to say that they are more in tune to what constitutes a problem. Your average owner wouldn't necessarily realize that they have lost their ABS when in fact your avg member on this site would ask to find out if they had a problem.

3. As for the number being small, well that number doesn't have to be large when it comes to life and death. Actually the number doesn't have to be actual events that have happened but simply for the possibility of the actions to take place/occur. If the number involved one of my family/ friends then that number would be one too many especially when it is a known problem. I can further venture to say that GM knows of the problem hence why some dealers are willing to correct the problem on a Goodwill Policy. Here is another good example, not everyone experienced the famous Column Lock but GM issued a recall to fix the problem. We have also had recalls for seatbelt issues. Both of these issues involved safety and involved recalls because of the potential for disaster not because it happened but because it could happen.

And just to let you know, I'm not jumping your chit over it. Just as you are approaching the view as the devils advocate I am simply looking at it as that if the potential for death or injury could occur then the problem needs to be corrected. And if I was going to take on the opposite point of view I would use your arguments. But if there is any reasonble doubt then you have to agree on the side of the people who are experiencing this problem.

Hey it was good talking to you btw. I too want to find out the outcome of this problem. And I hope that the thread starters friend gets better.

Vetteoholic

I've been lucky so far....Knock on wood.

RichieRichZ06

Very well stated! That is the exact response that I was hoping for. A well informed rebuttle.

The only argument that I have for you is GM knows about EBCM's that stop working, but not so much about a vehicle activating the brakes on it's own. The faulty EBCM for 99% of the people only results in a message on the DIC and possibly the ABS not working. RICH

POK868

I have never heard of this good to know though

FiberglassFan

This brings up another issue, that of the fact that the cars are set up to have understeer...I had to change springs, sway bars and go to wider wheels and tires in the front to make the car handle neutral in a corner. I am gratefull that my C5 does not have AH....part of the selection process when I was looking for my car. If I buy a second C5 and it happens to have AH I will do whatever it takes to totally disable it. ABS is fine, especially in the wet, as it can not increase brake application, or create a brake application on its own. I am very lery of having a bunch of low cost sensors and a computer known to have irregularitues decide to apply MY brakes all on it's own. Perhaps its time to ask some of our GM technical types how to disable the AH and leave the ABS intact. Could it be as simple as disconnecting servo activating wires at the AN brake actuators? I am not real pleased with the traction control either. I shut it off every time I start the car. I have found it to get into the way and actually prevent me from scooting out a dangerous situation more than once. I almost got hit once when the engine dropped to idle just as I REALLY needed it to push really hard.