Gort

I was leaving an event at the local high school yesterday, and because of the congestion, I had to make a right turn very squarely to get around some obstacles.

After I made the turn and while I was driving perfectly straight, my traction control warning light started to flash and I experience a significant power loss (due to the traction control limiting engine power I presume). If I lifted my foot, the TC light stopped flashing, but he minute I tried to apply more throttle, it would start to flash again and the computer would again limit the engine output, to the point of almost shutting it down.

This went on for a good 60 seconds until I pushed the shifter into neutral and then pulled it back into drive again. Then I had normal functionality again with no TC warnings.

It was a perfectly dry day -- no puddles, bright sunshine -- and the vehicle had been sitting in the sun for 3 hours. I can't believe that this is in any way related to water.

I recall reading some threads where people had experienced something similar while driving through puddles or on water crossings, but there was no water in the picture here.

I plan on calling the dealer tomorrow and making an appointment for them to look at it and tell me that the can't find anything wrong with it (their usual MO -- they couldn't find their a** with both hands) just to get it on record, but I'm not looking forward to a resolution.

Has anybody else experienced this? Any resolution in any other cases?

8000ft

weird...

there is something to be said about all of this "drive by wire" stuff...but I'm not allowed to say those words on Sunday

Gort

I have no problem with drive-by-wire as long as it works.

Until that point though...

nvertflyer

All the granny nanny electronic b/s on the jk is crap...kind of feels like your a kid at go cart world and they are cutting off your gas because your going too fast...do your self a favor and disconnect your dynamics sensor and take away its ability to interfere with your driving.its purpose was a so called safety feature but in some situations it can be down right dangerous...

Gort

How would one go about disconnecting that sensor?

I can see the particular issue that happened to me as being dangerous in certain situations -- like pulling out into traffic, for example. Fortunately there was no high-speed traffic in my case. In fact, I was kind of annoyed when anti-lock brakes hit the scene, and it's just been downhill from there.

If I had my preference, I'd have a mid-70s all-mechanical and simple setup. I know how to keep the wheels from locking up during braking and I'm very good at steering with my right foot -- I've owned a lot of Firebirds and Trans Ams (ALL pre-tractional control and ALB) and driven them all in the snow as well as doing a lot of otherwise 'spirited' driving with them. If I can get my F-bodies up a hill in snow, I'm sure I can manage with the Wrangler.

Having said all that, though, I'm still concerned that there's a sensor or programming issue with the traction control system.

My initial guess is that I turned the corner sharp enough to make the computer think that one wheel was slipping (presuming that the traction control code was programmed to be nanny-state paranoid) but I don't understand why it didn't shut down TC when it noticed that I was driving straight again and the wheels were turning at essentially the same speed again.

Ang3L

I don't have much experience with this, but it may have been the limp mode? From what I have heard, your problem and this sounds similar.

MeatCurtains

My 2011 JK did this, and yes it is dangerous and almost got me killed. Mine happened to be turning onto a road with oncoming traffic. You don't get a lot of breaks in the traffic to go, one came up and I went, the road is a pretty tight corner, not your typical 90% intersection. So I'm about 1/2 way out in the intersection, no spinning tires, no bat out of hell acceleration and my TCS comes on and no power, here comes traffic at 55mph, still nothing. I had to shift into neutral let out on the clutch and then shift back into first to get it to go.


I have no clue what happened, but there was a hole in the center of my chair where my butt ate it I was so startled.

Gort

Yeah, I can see a butt-pucker moment there.

As I said, I can see situations where this would be dangerous -- situations like yours. Pulling out into traffic, crossing traffic at an intersection, etc. Fortunately for me, it was only a 25 MPH side street and there was only one vehicle behind me that was moving slowly like I was.

Regardless, I'm going to call the dealer tomorrow morning and complain loudly. I'm sure they'll say "bring it in" (and waste half of a day for me) and then tell me that they were unable to reproduce the problem. This, BTW, is their usual response. The only dealer in my area with a good service department closed up because they had their dealer status yanked during the bankruptcy/bailout. Figures.

If I get the "can't reproduce" response, I may just invoke the NHTSA. If it'd actually do any good, I'd let the service department hear the magic "NHTSA complaint" words ahead of time with the hope of spurring them to actually try to find the problem -- but I seriously doubt that they give a crap about that.

nateo1979

This happened to me on the freeway doing 70! I had the cruise control on and it died. I posted this not to long ago and no one really knows why!

Gort

I guess that means I'll have to yell all the louder when I call them later today.