JockamoIPA

Well folks,

I'm here to seek the comfort of fellow CF'ers, and a few the MF'ers on here cause I'm sure they'll pop up.

I've been owning my red 05 z51 coupe for a little over a year now. Love the car. It has just north of 46k miles now on it so I've racked up about 9k since purchasing.

I consider my self a fairly experienced driver, but this is the first car I have ever owned with so much power. Needless to say, I didn't have a full appreciation or respect for what's under the hood until this weekend. I have opened the car up, within reason, on some isolated roads a couple of times, and I have experimented with my straight line 0-60 launches, which by rough estimation I'm right in the 4-5 sec range, but that was all before this problem came up.

Around September '11 I started getting the ABS/AH/TC error. It was very intermittent, but got progressively worse. At it's worse it would trip as soon as I pulled out of the garage, but once I would get where I was going and then get back in to return it would not trip again. In December I changed the battery because it was old and was starting to go out, and the ABS/AH/TC disappeared for the last month, but it appears that it was coincidence. Stupidly, I never had the codes checked.

As I was preparing to hit the road last Thursday afternoon for a father/daughter weekend New Orleans to Tampa trip, the problem came back. The weather forecast was nice for the entire trip so I decided to take it as is. Sure enough, after stopping for gas right before hitting I-10 on the way out the problem went away and didn't come back until last Saturday morning.

The weather in Tampa Saturday morning was low 50's climbing to the high 60's, with early morning dew. I'm headed to Orlando with the top off. What can go wrong?

I pulled out of the hotel parking lot and had the no.1 position at the light. I was in the left lane of a double turn lane onto a major 4-lane highway. The intersection is pretty big and humps right in the middle.

At a dead stop, and just seconds before the light turns green, my dashboard lights up like a fighter jet that just got hit with a surface-to-air missile...ABS/AH/TC. No worries. I got it.

I accelerate moderately from a stop, as I always do, thru 2500 rpm because I want to avoid skip shift, and begin to enter the left turn about 50 feet from the line. As I crest over the hump I'm smoothly entering the turn and getting ready to engage 2nd, and as I fully and gently release the clutch, the rear end completely departs to the right. The departure was so fast and unexpected that my counter steer failed to correct fast enough to get the car back on track, and I was in a nearly uncontrollable full right drift, almost perpendicular to the road, as if I was on ice. The drift was so smooth that the the tires weren't even skipping even though they were now travelling almost completely sideways. Without ABS/AH/TC the brakes were useless, and with the realization that the road was probably slick from the early morning dew I decided to allow the car to drift right and forward towards the grassy median at what seemed to be a 20-25 mph clip. I was bracing for the worse not knowing if the approximately 25-foot wide patch of grass would be enough to stop me from going head-on into the oncoming traffic, which was definitely coming.

Luckily, the grass stopped my progress and no one was hurt. The median had no curb so aside from the grass that flew up and floated into my car, ears, eyes, and every other nook and cranny, the car appeared to have no damaged. I was also fortunate that no one was in the lane to my right because I'm sure the rear end of my Vette would have made contact upon departure. After I made sure we were all still in one piece, the only damage was to my pride and ego. My 17-year old daughter smartly remarked "well I bet you're embarrassed right now..." and with a nervous grin I cranked the beast back up and couldn't get back on the road fast enough to make the u-turn and go back to the hotel parking lot to give my Vette the once over. I wiped her down as best I could and got most of the grass clippings out of the interior and from off ourselves, and tried it again. Needless to say, this time I took that turn a bit more cautiously.

We made it to Orlando and back with the ABS/AH/TC tripped for the entire day. Yesterday, as we readied to get back on the road to head home, the ABS/AH/TC tripped before we even left the hotel parking lot.

The car is back safe in the garage. It was raining today so at this point all I have been able to do is inspect and clean each wheel speed sensor connection, but I have not been able to test drive. They looked good, but I will be going to AutoZone to have the codes read as soon as I can. I'll post an update as soon as I have news.

RMcoolX

Glad to hear that everything turned out relatively OK. Now, get that thing fixed!

383vett

I hate having to to take a car to a dealer, but in your case, take it in tomorrow morning.

v26278

Besides the wheel speed sensors there is also a steering wheel position sensor that can wreak havoc if the connection goes bad. If you have telescopic steering and adjust it a lot, that can wear down the connection. You can imagine what the computer will do to compensate if it thinks the steering wheel is pointed somewhere other than its actual position

I'd get it looked at asap

Supersonic 427

Take it to a reputable Chevrolet dealership.....NOT AutoZone!

AORoads

if you didn't read the above, do so. I won't even go into whose lives you endangered by continuing on and back.

cgiff

Take it to a dealer. Not just any one. Bring it to Ross Downing in Hammond. They have always treated me and my car well and their service dept specializes in vetts.

Seadawg

If you live in Florida, Jon Hall Chevrolet has one of the top vette mechanics (Tom Roth). I recommend him highly for all vette repairs.

I had very similar issues with my 2008, search for my posts and you will see all of the things that can cause your issue.

It is a lonnnnnnggggg list.

And, Autozone cannot read all of the codes that a dealership can.

not08crmanymore

If your battery is OEM or close to 5 years old,get a new one.

Greg00Coupe

My C5 had a bad EBCM. So not traction control. That was fine 99% of the time.....but being a near daily driver there where certain conditions where the rear end broke loose, could be oil, cold, wet roads.......but each situation was a shock and potential accident.

You can't replace the 00 EBCM and this was a major reason I got a C6. Point is it's not worth the risk. If you can't get it fixed dump it. Don't drive around with a broken car.

MikeERWNC

Are you going to post pictures of said 17yo daughter?


















Just Kidding... That's funny though.

alyupe11

Sounds like a wild ride.....if only we could see a picture of your faces...

ATC399

Nah it wasn't funny if you have daughter

carjo

Glad you're OK. That said, you should have had it to the dealer before continued driving and giving the car the opportunity to harm itself or its occupants. The problem warrants the attention of a good Chevrolet service dept.

EyeMaster

Did I understand correctly that you tried shifting while turning? Don't do that again. Never shift in a turn.

arrie

so glad you are both Okay. I read the post about the telescopic steering wheel. I do have one and it automatically adjusts each time I get in and out. I might change that to stay at my driving position to avoid any potential event like yours. SCARY with our kids in the car!

cclive

I'm glad you and the car are not hurt but I just can't imagine having the car give a warning of trouble for almost a year and a half and not doing anything about it.

MikeERWNC

Lighten up Grandpa.
It is still OK to joke on the internets...

Your wife used to be somebodies daughter...
Now remember all the nasty things you did to her to make that daughter.

JJC5

Sounds like Grandpa needs to whoop your a**!
I agree that was a rather tasteless comment.

Larry/car

Auto Zone doesn't have a reader that will bring up system errors, just basic engine type codes. Good luck. Sounds like you just pulled out and your tires were cold, road temperature at or below 50 degrees, recipe for what occurred. You probably added more power than you realized.