leadfoot4

I've owned my C-5 for 16 years, since it was brand new. Never had anything "funky" happen, until today.....

My optician calls, says my new eye glasses are ready. I say, "OK, I'm on the way". Head out to the garage, jump in the 'Vette (sort of, anyway. At my age I don't "jump into" any car anymore....), hit the key, the car starts immediately. HOWEVER the dash and DIC light up, like Christmas. (this is the first that the car had been started in 2-3 days.)

ABS fault, Service Active Handling, and Service Traction Control warning lights are flashing, and scrolling on the DIC. I pull out of the garage, thinking that getting the car in motion will cancel the light show.....Nope! I shut the car off and re-start it. No change.

I drive down the driveway, the car seems OK, and I don't feel like moving my wife's car, so I can get my Jeep out, so I drive to the optician's place, about 4-5 miles, with all the warnings on. Car drives fine. I get to the optician, shut it down, nothing funky happens.

I come out about 20 minutes later, hit the key, and everything is fine, like nothing ever happened. Drive home, no issues. I shut it down, pull out my "cheat sheet", to check for codes. I get just one, 28TCS, C1214H.

The shop manual says this code will set when the system voltage is less than 8 volts, for .23 seconds. Any thoughts as to what happened, here?

All the obvious electrical connections are tight, and the battery (so far) has been good. It's a 1 year old Optima Red Top.

TIA

Black 03 Z06

Year old battery Leadfoot4 but I would get it load tested.

These cars are just so sensitive to voltage and the lack of it. Not uncommon for a year old battery to have issues.

Best of luck getting it sorted. Maybe just one of those one time events.

4XLR8N

low battery voltage probably...

vettenuts

Have a lot of things that have happened this year so driving the Vette is at best an occasional thing. I keep mine on the CTEK for that reason.

Rob 02

Computers can occasionally get erroneous information in them. If it happens again I would be concerned.

You could have a slightly loose battery connection.

bobs77vet

let the battery set over night and then measure the voltage on the battery.

google the battery voltage and you will find a table that correlates sitting battery voltage to the strength of the battery. maybe time to clean grounds this winter.

leadfoot4

I parked the car, yesterday, after returning from the opticians, and pulling the DTC. This morning, I checked the battery voltage, and it was 12.1V. I have an Optima charger, and put it on the car. After it went through it's "recognition stage", it showed a 75% charge. So I'm leaving the charger on it for a while. Once it gets to 100%, I'll fire it up, and see what happens.

After I retired from full-time work, I had a part-time gig at the local Advance Auto Parts store. I'll go over there, and run a load test on it, and see what comes up.



That thought crossed my mind, unfortunately. I say unfortunately, because I do NOT relish doing electrical work. I'll work on an engine, or do all sorts of brake and suspension work, and never give it a second thought. But electrical stuff..........

However, thanks for the information.

lonerider2002

Chances are the C1214 code is the EBCM circuit board has an issue that is easily repairable on 2001 and up C5s. The "light show" will continue to come and go until the problem has been fixed. Just search EBCM and you'll find all the info you need.

leadfoot4

I know that a lot of people do that, but I have an attached garage, and I don't feel comfortable doing that. I know that those "tenders" are usually reliable, but it only takes one time, for something to go wrong, and you've got a serious incident on your hands.

Having said that, I store my Corvette for the winter, and what I do is to put the charger on it once a week, for about 2 hours....usually when I'm out running the snowblower around the driveway.

Bill Curlee

My thoughts are; You had a corrupted Serial Data Buss. The C5 LDCM & RDCM are the most likely culprits. It isn't a BAD DCM but the power that SUPPLIES that module through the six pin power connector inside the door A pillar.

If you would have read the DTCs when the issue was happening, you most likely would have seen a BUNCH of NO COMMS for a of modules.

The six pin power connector that supplies power to the DCM has female pins that spread apart over time due to heat/cooling and vibrations. When they spread they make POOR CONTACT with the male pin. Any vibration causes the connection to make and break and the module turns on and off, on and off on and off, on and off. That causes the module to corrupt the serial data buss.

The next time it happens, leave the ignition ON,, PRESS RESET until you can read the DTCs.

After you see what is happening, Open the doors, grab the rubber accordion tube and shake the hell out of it. Turn the ignition OFF, then back on and see if the problem is resolved and you can clear the DTCs.

Here is a picture of the bad pin/s My bad one is on the TOP row center pin:

leadfoot4

OK, thanks everyone for the information, and here's an update....

I charged the battery for a couple of hours, but the "battery condition meter" on the Optima charger wouldn't read over 75%. The voltage, however, read 12.6V. Anyway, after that, I took the charger off, and drove the car around for a while, before heading off to the barber shop. I also did a couple of "ABS Engaging Stops" across my front lawn, just to make sure that the ABS thingie needed some exercise.

I took the battery out of the 'Vette, and drove the Jeep to the barber's, and took the battery back to Advance Auto, to do a load test. At that point, I got a surprise....the battery wasn't 1-1.5 years old, as I originally thought. It was 4 years old. (I then realized that I was thinking of the battery in my wife's car, which was the one that was a year old.....)

We did a load test on the Optima, and it didn't look too good, so I decided to, at a minimum, replace the battery, and see where we go from here. Since the condition for setting the code, is a less than 8V condition for a quarter of a second, I would think that a marginal battery would be the first variable to eliminate.

leadfoot4

I want to revive this discussion, for two reasons. First, the good news, since replacing the battery, I've driven the car several times, with no issues.

The second thing, involves a question, most likely to Bill. A couple of days ago, I had some spare time, and thought I'd look at the wiring harness to the doors, the plugs, in particular. I disengaged the "accordion" from the door, and firewall, but didn't readily see the plugs.

I felt around, and it appears that the plugs "reside" within the firewall. Before I start messing anything up, my question is, if there's enough "slack" in the harness, to allow the plugs to come out of the firewall, and be "maintained"?

As much as I believe in preventive maintenance, I also believe in the saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".....

Bill Curlee

YES

leadfoot4

OK, guys...........I'll go back in there.

leadfoot4

Reviving the discussion.......

I had some spare time, earlier today, so I went back in, disconnected the "accordians", and inspected the plugs. Fortunately, they were in good shape, so I simply sprayed them with some "contact cleaner", then gave them a smear of dielectric grease, and put everything back together.

Went for a test drive, of course, and everything is OK....

SG Lou

Sounds to me like the battery was the culprit

leadfoot4

It does look that way.