Highway speed bounce & VSA & ABS lights on
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Highway speed bounce & VSA & ABS lights on
A couple years ago I bought a 2010 TL and it has been running great until just recently (about a month). This new issue develops around ~75mph where a slight bounce starts that doesn't affect handling, there's no pull (like if alignment were the issue) and I replaced the front suspension not more than 8 months ago and it has felt great. My first thought was that I hadn't replaced the tires since I bought the car so I thought they needed to be balanced... now I have 4 new tires... and the problem persists. I was planning on going on a road trip and the bounce is just annoying enough that I took it into a local shop to see if they could figure out the issue. They determined that it had something to do with the front drive shafts, bearings and hubs. They replaced all 3 on both sides, charged me an arm (not a full leg too luckily), and the problem still exists, although it's significantly reduced now (but still noticeable).
Now for the VSA & ABS lights.
After about a week of driving it again, things were feeling good enough to take the car on a road trip, which was part of the reason I took it in in the first place. Turns out, the shop didn't dimple in the axle nuts to prevent them from spinning off while I was driving which first caused the both the ABS and VSA sensors to light up and later the brake rotor to start grinding on the caliper and brake boot. I've got several VSA codes showing up on my HUD that I will list below. Long story short, I only realized my wheel was about to fly off (because the brakes felt normal) when I was in a spot where I could get the wheel off and sure enough, my rotor was in pretty rough shape, part of the caliper was ground off, and I got it into a different shop where I was and they charged me $40 to tighten everything up again and dimple in the nut for me.
The VSA codes that show up in messages are:
12
14
16
18
62
84
I haven't taken it back to the shop yet, but I plan on claiming warranty on their shoddy work and getting the bearings and rotors replaced, since the shop that fixed the problem mentioned that the bearings might be shot.
I got ahold of an '09 '10 TL Service Manual that has each of the codes as follows:
12- right-front wheel speed sensor
14- left-front wheel speed sensor
16- right-rear wheel speed sensor
18- left-rear wheel speed sensor
62- High +B-FSR Voltage
84- VSA Sensor Neutral Position
I've looked through several other threads and there have been recommendations that the issue could be battery-related, but the car starts up without any difficulty which helps me rule that out fairly safely. The other weird behavior is that the car won't shut down unless I use one of the emergency shutoff sequences (triple-clicking the engine start/stop button or holding it for 5 seconds).
That brings me to my questions:
1) Could the replacement hubs/bearings (which I've learned have magnetic encoders in them) have caused the entire VSA system to get cooked?
2) Any tips or ideas about what I can do to identify the brake problem before I just drop it off to the shop and let them screw around with my car again? I might not be as worried as I should be because I'm going to go politely invite them to work warranty fix the death trap they told me was good to drive, but I don't want to just give them the car and have them blame me for the damage or claim that the issue is unrelated to the wheel almost falling off.
3) What could be causing the bounce at 75mph? The engine mounts seem to be good, the tires have been rebalanced again after a week of driving on them, my next guess would be the alignment but it's hard to be sure.
Sorry for the 5 paragraph essay of a post, this has been frustrating and I really just want to get back to driving this beauty of a car without worrying about the brakes working like they should.
Now for the VSA & ABS lights.
After about a week of driving it again, things were feeling good enough to take the car on a road trip, which was part of the reason I took it in in the first place. Turns out, the shop didn't dimple in the axle nuts to prevent them from spinning off while I was driving which first caused the both the ABS and VSA sensors to light up and later the brake rotor to start grinding on the caliper and brake boot. I've got several VSA codes showing up on my HUD that I will list below. Long story short, I only realized my wheel was about to fly off (because the brakes felt normal) when I was in a spot where I could get the wheel off and sure enough, my rotor was in pretty rough shape, part of the caliper was ground off, and I got it into a different shop where I was and they charged me $40 to tighten everything up again and dimple in the nut for me.
The VSA codes that show up in messages are:
12
14
16
18
62
84
I haven't taken it back to the shop yet, but I plan on claiming warranty on their shoddy work and getting the bearings and rotors replaced, since the shop that fixed the problem mentioned that the bearings might be shot.
I got ahold of an '09 '10 TL Service Manual that has each of the codes as follows:
12- right-front wheel speed sensor
14- left-front wheel speed sensor
16- right-rear wheel speed sensor
18- left-rear wheel speed sensor
62- High +B-FSR Voltage
84- VSA Sensor Neutral Position
I've looked through several other threads and there have been recommendations that the issue could be battery-related, but the car starts up without any difficulty which helps me rule that out fairly safely. The other weird behavior is that the car won't shut down unless I use one of the emergency shutoff sequences (triple-clicking the engine start/stop button or holding it for 5 seconds).
That brings me to my questions:
1) Could the replacement hubs/bearings (which I've learned have magnetic encoders in them) have caused the entire VSA system to get cooked?
2) Any tips or ideas about what I can do to identify the brake problem before I just drop it off to the shop and let them screw around with my car again? I might not be as worried as I should be because I'm going to go politely invite them to work warranty fix the death trap they told me was good to drive, but I don't want to just give them the car and have them blame me for the damage or claim that the issue is unrelated to the wheel almost falling off.
3) What could be causing the bounce at 75mph? The engine mounts seem to be good, the tires have been rebalanced again after a week of driving on them, my next guess would be the alignment but it's hard to be sure.
Sorry for the 5 paragraph essay of a post, this has been frustrating and I really just want to get back to driving this beauty of a car without worrying about the brakes working like they should.
Pro
Joined: Dec 2020
Posts: 685
Likes: 172
From: Lowell MA
Couple thoughts that hopefully point you in the right direction:
DTCs 12, 14, 16, and 18 are for intermittent speed sensor data errors. The sensors are providing wheel speed data that's occasionally/intermittently out of range. If you unplugged any of the speed sensors, you'd get DTCs 11, 13, 15, and 17 instead. Reading the live data with a scan tool is generally the first step to diag these.
If the ABS/VSA lights and codes started after you took it to that first shop, I'm guessing they did something screwy, possibly to the ABS pump since all four wheel speed sensors started complaining at the same time.
DTCs 12, 14, 16, and 18 are for intermittent speed sensor data errors. The sensors are providing wheel speed data that's occasionally/intermittently out of range. If you unplugged any of the speed sensors, you'd get DTCs 11, 13, 15, and 17 instead. Reading the live data with a scan tool is generally the first step to diag these.
If the ABS/VSA lights and codes started after you took it to that first shop, I'm guessing they did something screwy, possibly to the ABS pump since all four wheel speed sensors started complaining at the same time.
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