So I'm driving the other day on the highway, at about 75mph, and all of a sudden the car just pulls hard to one side and sort of felt like it was braking at the same time!!! I looked at the display and it was reading that the traction control had been engaged. Has this happened to anyone else. Or does anyone know what it is?? Thanks


Barry

 

I've heard it happen with C6 Z06's... Not with C5's.

 

That's precisely what it was doing. Braking. (and breaking?) That is how the car corrects itself in the event it detects a change in traction. It sounds like what happened is something went terribly wrong with the sensors which monitor your traction, so let's say your car pulled to the left hard, (you didn't say which):

ACTIVE HANDLING:

1.) the ECU was fed information from a faulty sensor that traction was lost. The sensors would be reporting a loss of traction with the rear swinging to the left. (car is in a clockwise spin)

2.) the system initiates the traction control "counter measure" IMMEDIATELY by reading the telemetry and determining the car needs to be corrected by "swinging" the rear back to the right. It accomplishes this by using your already forward momentum to it's advantage, simply by sending a signal to BRAKE the front LEFT wheel ONLY. This creates a "fulcrum" or pivot point at this tire, as forward momentum will now force a bias on the right side of the car.

3.) the system will do this until it achieves (close) to normal conditions. Effectively straightening out your car.

This is what I believe happened to you. The catch is, you never lost control. The car thought it did though and that's not good. I have never encountered this myself and this sort of scenario has always played out in my mind: "what would happen if the conditions were truly normal but the sensors went haywire?".

It's a freaky thought. I'm glad you are okay. Get it to a certified mechanic who knows this stuff well. Get it fixed ASAP.

I will surely be mindful myself from now on. I was under the impression that there was a whole lot more going on between accelerometers, gyros, speed, etc ... Meaning the system wouldn't have a knee jerk reaction because a single failure would contradict other read outs. This is how I understood it from GM themselves.

Glad you're safe. Good luck!

 

Do a search (use advanced search), there a a fair number of posts on this, Its rare but happens.

There are a crapload of safeguards in the system, sensor errors almost always cause it to shut off, rather than taking any action.

But you're not the first to experience this.

 

You must have a problem with the active handling system.

I have a defective SWPS and when the system drops out I sometimes get a little twitch but nothing as dramatic as you experienced.

Pull your codes and post them up and we can offer advice. Your looking for codes in the 2nd section "28 Traction Control System"

 

I'll forward you a good Curlee Thread

 

did you take your foot completely off the throttle?
did you hit a slippery spot on the pavement?
did you tap the brake peddle?
did the car hit a bump in the road?
did you swerve to avoid something?

Then TC/AH was activated?

More info is needed.

in most cases with the C5 it is driver error that caused TC/AH activation.

a few 04s had bad yaw sensors, which was activated under baking.

 

Not on my personal car, but I was driving another C5 (used to sell at a Corvette-only dealership a few years ago) and I was casually cruising on the interstate and all of a sudden out of nowhere the steering wheel was almost totally snatched out of my hands (loose grip since cruising blissfully unaware)..... It was a STRONG pull almost like a person grabbed the wheel and yanked it.

I took that car back the dealership and told them what happened. The shop looked it all over and couldn't find anything..... I swore I would never drive that car again... I felt it was death waiting to happen.

The only reason I said all this is to confirm that I've personally experienced exactly what you described and it was enough to wake me up! The car almost lost control, if it was raining I would have lost it.... also, the car ended up in the lane next to me, if another car was there I would have crashed.

 

That's why I hate all that crap [active handling, traction control etc...]
I've got it all including the heads up display and every other thing available. More stuff to go wrong in my opinion.
Bah humbug I say

 

Happened to me in my C5 Z06 doing about 75 also. The problem was the Steering Wheel Position Sensor. Didn't throw any codes when it did it. The other thing my car started doing was kicking off the cruise control for no apparent reason.

I think the sensor costs $50 or $60 and a few hours labor. Don't attempt a replacement of the SWPS until you've read the procedure. The steering wheel must be fixed in the straight ahead position so it will not move during the R&R.

 

wow, glad you're ok.

I would have $#!t my pants.

 

When you find out exactly what happened and what the fix is, please post it up here. Sure glad you didn't lose control of the car.

 

 

What a NIGHTMARE!!!!
Good to hear that no one's been killed or injured---that we know of.....
Seems to me there ought to be a recall to make sure that sensors fail safe1
I suppose it will take multiple fatalaties and class action lawsuits before GM and/or NHTSA would do anything.

 

The same thing happened to my car. It jerked me from the left lane of the freeway, to the center.

Long story short, it was my SWPS going bad. Code was P1287.

 

happened to me on a spiritied cruise threw me to the left lane at 100+ scared the **** out of me. i always turn it off on

 

100% You should have a 28TCS-1287 code.

 

The only time my traction control kicked it was when I drove over a slight puddle during heavy rain.

 

Steering wheel position sensor going out.