Trip/Traction Control Switch

If there a fuse for these buttons? I let my son use my car and he brought it back with the trip not reseting and the traction control not switching on and off. I hope it is a fuse because some of these parts are hard to find.

When that happened to me it was the connector behind the switch had come loose. It's not too difficult to get at, but does require you to remove the kick panel or whatever they call that thing above the pedals.

Is your Trac Off light on all the time, or does the button just not work?

I agree, sounds like the switch is disconnected.

Joby70739 wrote:

If there a fuse for these buttons? I let my son use my car and he brought it back with the trip not reseting and the traction control not switching on and off. I hope it is a fuse because some of these parts are hard to find.

Yes but I don't recall which one - the fuses are listed in the owner's manual.

Ask you son what he did with the car to be able to make a better guess as to which fuse might be blown. Or whether he spilled a coffee or soda on the dash, dousing the switch, and then cleaned it up, in which case the switch may have an issue. It should not be that tough to get a replacement switch from Ed Morad (moradpartscompany.com) if that's the case. Stuff can and does happen, no sense blowing up, just fix it. One time one of my son's friends, for instance, managed to douse the control box under the drivers seat on my RIv. Another time, a different friend managed to jam and ground a wire under the passenger seat. Why, with all that room back there, I am not sure - but it took a long time to figure that one out. And there was not really a reason to think that a problem would be caused by that.

Anyway, good luck and let us know what you find.

Albertj

Joby70739 wrote:

If there a fuse for these buttons? I let my son use my car and he brought it back with the trip not reseting and the traction control not switching on and off. I hope it is a fuse because some of these parts are hard to find.

Your first post on here was about your car's door locks not working as they used to.
Do you think there is a pattern here.?

Well, as her son, I can safely say that I did not spill anything on the dash that would have possibly affected the buttons...

The trac off light is not lit up, so as far as we can tell, the traction control is in fact on. (I don't think either of us have taken the time to check or been in a situation that requires it as of late.) The switch itself just doesn't seem to be working.

Just to clarify, this is a 1996+ Riv right?

Nez wrote:

Well, as her son, I can safely say that I did not spill anything on the dash that would have possibly affected the buttons...

The trac off light is not lit up, so as far as we can tell, the traction control is in fact on. (I don't think either of us have taken the time to check or been in a situation that requires it as of late.) The switch itself just doesn't seem to be working.

Thanks for the clarification.

The trac off light should glow if you press the trac off switch, then go out if you press teh switch again. If it does not work then maybe the switch is bad, maybe the light is out. You can check for sure with a "TechII" which is the GM handheld diagnostic computer. Plugging the TechII in to the OBD port, you can press the switch and see right on the TechII screen if it worked; you can see if the ABS or traction control are working; you can run the ABS diagnostics and pinpoint components that don't pass the self test.

Anyway...

To get at the connector to the switch you have to remove the panel under the steering column on the drivers side. You will need a small (I think 4 or 5 MM) wrench, or small adjustable wrench, to remove the screws that hold it up (they are obvious if you get on the floor and look up at it, not a big deal). Once that panel is off you can reach the connector to the switch and make sure it is cinched. Then try the switch again to see if it works.

If you need to remove the switch you have to remove the dashboard face. It is *not* difficult but will take a while because there are a number of fasteners and you want to be sure not to break it (it is one big piece of plastic spanning the whole face of the dash). That said, there is a write up on here about how to remove it that was pretty good; I used it (instead of the factory manual) to get mine off when I was re-lamping my climate control.

If you got your Riv used, it might be wise to check to see if maybe the previous owner removed the "TRACTION OFF" bulb from the dash, or maybe if the bulb is just burned out. A reason (albeit a bad reason) to remove that bulb is if one of the wheel hub sensors is bad -- the hubs are expensive and many people don't care that ABS does not work (I think you *need* ABS for the Riv) and so when a hub sensor goes they just pull the bulb (because if they don't it gives an annoying yellow glow all the time). You will probably have to remove the dash cluster to check this although I have heard of people reaching up after removing the panel under the steering column - but I have No Idea how they reached the instrument cluster bulbs at all. And, thinking about it, this is another reason to have a GM dealer check it out. Usually the diagnosis is $50.- or so - but they will be able to tell you what's working/broken in a matter of minutes and you don't have to pull a bunch of stuff to guess. And when you do find out, if you want you could just have an independent mechanic fix it, or fix it yourself. For this the parts could be obtained throught rockauto.com or moreadpartscompany.com (or actually a combination of the two) without too much hassle.

Let us know what you find.

Albertj

Well the bulb for the traction off light isn't burned out, as it lights up with the rest of the dash when the car is cranked, just to scratch that off the list.

I've got the car again right now, and I don't think she'd appreciate it if I started taking things apart, as I'm by no means a mechanic... So that will probably be taken care of later next week.

Thanks for the help so far guys.

Nez wrote:

Well the bulb for the traction off light isn't burned out, as it lights up with the rest of the dash when the car is cranked, just to scratch that off the list.

I've got the car again right now, and I don't think she'd appreciate it if I started taking things apart, as I'm by no means a mechanic... So that will probably be taken care of later next week.

Thanks for the help so far guys.

If the light is working most likely it's the connector to that switch, just a guess.

My Riv's connectors have not had problems. I used to have a Volvo 740 - bought it used - one thing that went wrong with it early on was the instrument cluster connector came *partially* off, so instruments would work intermittently. It was like the car had become demon-posessed. Was easy to investigate, just needed a phillips head screwdriver to pull the instrument cluster. Turns out the wire to the cluster was misrouted and so tended to pull away from the cluster due to the tension loading from other wires behind the dash.

To this day I don't know why it had that problem - if maybe someone swapped clusters at some point, or maybe someone disconnected the cluster for a while for some reason or another.

Albertj

turtleman wrote:

Just to clarify, this is a 1996+ Riv right?

Its a 98

albertj wrote:

Nez wrote:

Well the bulb for the traction off light isn't burned out, as it lights up with the rest of the dash when the car is cranked, just to scratch that off the list.

I've got the car again right now, and I don't think she'd appreciate it if I started taking things apart, as I'm by no means a mechanic... So that will probably be taken care of later next week.

Thanks for the help so far guys.

If the light is working most likely it's the connector to that switch, just a guess.
My Riv's connectors have not ahd problems. I used to have a Volvo 740 - bought it used - one thing that went wrong with it early on was the instrument cluster connector came *partially* off, so instruments would work intermittently. It was like the car had become demon-posessed. Was easy to investigate, just needed a phillips head screwdriver to pull the insturment cluster. Turns out the wire to the cluster was mistouted and so tended to pull away from the cluster due to the tension loading from other wired behind the dash.

To this day I don't know why it had that problem - if maybe someone swapped clusters at some point, or maybe someone disconnected the cluster for a while for some reason or another.

Albertj

No Albert it was working before I have been tryin to remember when the dash was last taken out. Seems like my husband took it out for something because I had to go buy new clips for the top.

Automobile is a high-vibration environment.

I suspect you're just going to have to pull it back apart and check the connections.

Albertj

I had the same issue with mine. The connections were all secure and the switch would light up. I ended up taking my switch apart and cleaning it. It's a very simple switch with just a few springs and contact points. The switch comes apart just by unscrewing it. I would take the switch apart and clean it. That fixed my issue (after I bought a new switch off of ebay).

Stupid question here to the people talking about the switch: Are you guys talking about the plug that goes right into the back of that button assembly? If that was unplugged, could that also yield a similar result? If that were the case, I'd carefully go back in and pull the side pieces of the dash, then that upper part and finally after all the bolts are undone, pull that whole dash panel back to see if the plug is still attached to those buttons (there's a writeup on this site). Only reason I say this is that the plug on my car wasn't fully clasped so when I went in there, the plug popped right out.

HTH

It is the dash switch I will be looking for a replacement one

Joby70739 wrote:

It is the dash switch I will be looking for a replacement one

When you pull the dash switch the part number will be molded in or stamped on it somewhere.

try monsterpartsonline.com and check pricing including shipping.

Usually for small stuff like switches and such, however, it's cheaper to get via dealer - dealer will have it in a day or 3 and you won't pay shipping.


Albertj

I can get one out a parts car where I got everything else. This car blew a head gasket and the owner couldnt fix it so I get parts off it from the shop its at

It was unplugged. Imagine that.