Sneaky Pete

My car was parked at work today during a snow storm here in Indy. I have a C4 with snow tires. I was not worried about the snow. Got into the car, let it warm up and proceeded out of the parking lot. The car got bogged down into some deep snow from the get go. I turned off the PSM for more grip and moved out of the deep snow. Now this is where it turns odd.......making a left hand turn the car would not turn as usual..the wheel turned but not the car. The ABS light came on and I than felt something break in the front right. It felt like the rotors were frozen to the calipers. The car than turned corners fine but the ABS lite is still on. Also I turned the PSM back on. The light on the button was off but was lit on the idiot lites along with the ABS. I also tried braking hard in the snow to test the ABS but there was no pulsing.

Are these connected in some way or do I have 2 different issues?


heLLLLLPPPPP!

redridge

no error codes?

Sneaky Pete

I checked the codes. No errors. Started the car waiting for the lights to turn off a few times. Nothing...

I than noticed the MPH, time and ODO digital read outs stayed on after I turned the car off. Odd. I than started one more time and backed out of the garage and the PSM and ABS lights went off. Went back into the garage, turned the motor off, got out and the read outs were still on. Locked the car and the read outs went off. Could the computer have possibly re-set itself?

Everything appears to be fine now.

Shark Attack

That sucks.... Did you happen to look undernieth and see if maybe something broke.

Pac996

The ABS sensors are located inboard of the rotors appearing to pointed at the axles. Notches are what the sensors are sensing to monitor wheel speeds. Debri in the notches or on sensor face can throw them off. Pressure washing the locations at a do it yourself car wash might solve the problem. I wouldn't get too agressive near seals.

Concerning sounding like something breaking. It could of just been the modes of drive shifting around which change the suspension stance. Cold shocks or undriven when the seals make travels up and down some times make a breaking or cracking sound. I'd be prone to think that if it were me.

PS in snow some times no matter what inputs the car isn't turning. Once the C4 started doing its stuff then it starting tracking.

Sneaky Pete

Shark.......nothing appears to be out of place underneath.

The car sleeps in a some what heated garage. After being outside in a blowing snow all day....I'm hoping ice and snow caused the issue on the right front rotor. All will be melted in the morning. Typical after driving in snow the next morning I find the pads and rotors tend to stick while first backing out.

We will see how the car is in the morning drive. Still snowing here dammit!

Van

Yeah, I bet when you got snow/ice packed in the wheel/brake, the wheel stopped spinning while the others were. This made the computer *think* the ABS was doing something - but the computer knew it wasn't, so it decided it must be having an error. It shut itself down (turning on the ABS light) - which also shuts down the PSM, because it works on the same "brake control system".

After you reset the ignition (turned it off and started it again) the ABS computer saw that all wheels were turning when they were supposed to, so it was happy and started working again.

No worries.

yasuro

happens to me a couple or 3 times per year in the year. Goes away by restarting the engine. No codes, so i figure it's the ABS sensor. it's probably nothing.

wwest

That will happen, happened to me, with a slightly low battery cell. Second symptom is slightly slow engine cranking when starting.

Sneaky Pete

Thank you guys!! Van - That is exactly how the car felt.

The car runs fine.....just freaked a bit yesterday.

C4CRNA

I bet you had a bunch of snow or ice packed in there.
I had a bunch of snow packed into a wheel and it felt like the front end was going to shake off at 30MPH