I own a 2003 X Type with about 60k miles on it, but it sat for quite a while. I hadn’t experienced any prior electrical issues in the year that I owned it until about 6 months ago.

I had my drivers (left hand) side tail light go out. After replacing a fuse it fixed the taillight. However, I started getting a yellow error light on the dash and a prompt saying DCS system failure.

At first the transmission locked me out at the shifter, but once I figured out how to get it into drive it works fine aside from ABS and TC

Since then I have tried to fix it by replacing a brake fluid pressure sensor but nothing was fixed. The tail light continued working after this fix but went out again shortly after.

I feel pretty lost on the whole thing, I’m pretty capable of fixing electrical issues as long as I know where to look/what parts to buy, so if anyone has suggestions they’d be appreciated!

 

truuucks, connect up a code reader and you should have some error codes. That will give us a starting point. Based on you having issues with your ABS and traction control, you most likely have a bad wheel speed sensor. Based on you have an X-Type, the probabilities are pretty high that it is one of your rear sensors (should have code C1065 or C1075 as I recall). that will narrow it down to a specific wheel. As for the fix. based on the age of the car, odds are it is the reluctance ring on the half shaft, out at the wheel end. This ring is known for rusting and then failing. This will cause the car to see that wheel as "not spinning", when it fact it really is. This will throw up an error code. Some people have had issues with the wiring getting damaged too. So, do not just jump on having to replace the half shaft.

You can pull off the rear wheels and do an inspection of the wiring to make sure that is good and then you can remove the wheel speed sensor and using a flash light, look down the hole for the reluctance ring (going to look like a metal strap tightly attached to the CV shaft with the strap having rectangular holes in it). That band will snap and just float inside the opening of the CV shaft.

Hope this gives you atleast a starting point. Big thing is getting the error codes as that is what the car is seeing as wrong and this will give us a definite path to walk down to get to a fix.