Well guys, I was driving the car to a buddy's house in the rain on Saturday and when exiting the freeway, the dsc failure light came on. I wasn't driving fast at all. It came on and when I went to leave the stop light, the car wouldn't go faster than 2-4 mph. I could floor it and the dsc would keep anything from happening. The car wouldn't even free rev. I limped it to a side street, shut it off and then it went back to normal when i turned it back on.

Would the rain have possibly been screwing with a sensor? It hasn't come back since over the course of 100 miles but it also hasn't been raining.

 

You couldn't even rev in neutral? Not even up to whatever rev limit there is? Doesn't sound right.

Otherwise, hmm. Water should not be getting in but could have. Equally, may not have been water - though it sounds #1 suspect.

The sensor end expects to get wet (think - or read JTIS - where it is!) but for example doesn't want to get any rust particles on itself. (The rest of the circuit doesn't expect to get wet.)

Could well be stored codes but they'll be in the DSC (ABS) module so really you need a dealer-type tool. On a good day the codes would show if it was a wheel sensor (and which) or the main module or whatever.

If (and that's IF) it was water, the various connections at the wheel, in the wheel arch (sorry, wheel well) and so on are the most likely but you don't want to mess with the working ones as you could make things worse.

A member or two has the AutoEnginuity tool and for a beer or two might lend you it?

 

that's a great questions. I wish I would have tried that but I was kind of in a rush and flustered too.

I'll have the dealer run the codes when I take it into get an oil change. They typically don't charge me for just that.

I borrowed the AE software a while back but unfortunately I don't have it right now....

 

AE needs a special hardware device.

 

well the car has electrical gremlins once again. I was pulling out of the gym after the car sat for an hour; drove it a 100 yards and the I got the park brake fault message on the dash. It felt like it was going on and off. I could feel the pulsing in the car and it wasn't rolling freely. I shut it off for less than a minute and started it up and drove home. About 1/2 mile later, it started doing it again. I once again shut it off and then drove the remaining 1/2 mile home. The check engine light is now illuminated. It also was saying dsc failure briefly if I recall correctly.

I have a weak battery in the car. When I run the stereo when it's parked for more than 15 minutes, the battery is toast.

However, the car wasn't experiencing any trouble starting and I drove the car about 40 minutes home prior to a 20 minute stop at home and then going to the gym.

I'm going to take the car to my jag guy to get the oil changed and hopefully he can check out the codes. Hopefully it's going haywire due to the old battery that I can replace and not something more difficult to diagnose or fix.

What do you guys think?

 

It's the battery. Waste of time to do tests in this state, but you need to change the battery and then note & clear the codes in the modules other then the PCM (which will lose them on battery disconnect).

With a bad battery the car can't even get the peak current to fire the injectors properly. Let's hope the fuel's been burning OK rather than damaging the cats (which cost a lot more than a battery).

 

Agreed. You have a classic case of a dying battery. Easy fix and relatively inexpensive....

 

The battery is coming out tonight after work. Hopefully that'll do it

 

Got a call from the shop. There were tons of low voltage error codes. The battery is now replaced with an interstate; well see if it's all good now

 

I'm going clear back to your original post, but I think you still need to investigate the area listed in the attached bulletin. Water could be getting to your TPS and causing some of your headaches. Some people have actually made a shield to lay under this area to shed water so it can't get to the TPS.

Good luck!