FAQ: Anti-Lock Brakes and/or Traction Control Light/Lamp On

Unfortunately you will need to find someone near you with a HPTuners or equivalent so they can retune your PCM. Tuning is over my head but I am lucky enough to live reletively close to Paul over at PRJ Performance so he takes care of that for me. Check on the Grand Prix forums for someone who is close to you if you can;t find anyone here.

BTY Mike, I was told the '97 is the most difficult year to tune for the Rivs and I think it has to do with the TM overriding what was commanded ... I think it pulls timing just as if it pulls timing for knock for one reason or another. You might want to give Paul a call once you find someone with a tuner.

my abs and trac off light is on also. Were can I find the speed sensors and what do they look like? Is there a wright up on these or pics?

Speed sensors are built into the front hubs (spindles & bearings). There is a wire with connector behind the brake rotor, you can access it from under the car. Or, you can take off the wheel and rotor, try to find it where the drive shaft meets the hub. The connector can get dirty or corroded. Disconnect each side, clean with electronic parts cleaner, reconnect. Also inspect wires for shorts or breaks. Here is a picture of the wire with connector circled. Dotted line shows where connector clips to the rotor shield:

thanks for the help AA I will check it out sat afterwork!

Rickw wrote:

If TC and ABS is disabled by Intense Std. PCM, then I'll need this info also. Just received PCM yesterday, have yet to install though.
Going with Derek on Friday to Dyno tune shop. He and brother have scheduled a couple of hours. I'm just going to meet and observe.
Turns out shop is less than 8 Miles from my house and i didn't even know it.
If my PCM needs additional tuning to enable TC and ABS I'd like to be able to speak to these guys about it somewhat intelligently, if thats possible.!

Rick,

My orignal PCM upgrade was from Intense and it did not affect trac control or ABS.

-D

Rickw wrote:

mike,
Do yourself a favor and buy the Factory Service Manual.
I did shortly after buying my Riv. and it's been very helpful and worth every penny i spent.

Do I get that from the dealer? Or do you mean just a regular 3800 book?

I ordered my set of Factory manuals direct from the publisher; Helm, Inc
1-800-782-4356 Mon-Fri 08:00-18:00 EST
This info is located on last few pages of Owners Manual .

THere ahve been a bunch of factory manual sets on EBay lately - might want to check.

Albertj

Amen!Amen!Amen!

after driving my riviera for a couple thousand miles after the guy before me installed the intense pcm, the trac off light, AND the ABS light turned off!!!! I am in complete happiness right now! and like a week before the winter snowstorms. someone just try and tell me that there is not a god! lol i might be a little dramatic but HAVE YOU SEEN WISCONSIN WINTERS?????

I dont think I could survive the winters up there. Just now as I was coming back from a walk out to the road and back with my dog(he had to make a poo) I was thinking and wondering about how it musty be up North in the winter.
I think it was like 23* here this morning but should rise to around 55* today....

Bert

heya
i have a problem whit the ABS and traction controll..
the light ABS and traction off where on when i buyed my riv.
Checked 1st the fuises but they where ok. then took the wheels off ...cleaned the connections where the wire goes to abs sencore.
they where okay..no corrosion or anything..then checked brake fluid and it was on full...any more ideas what i could check?
maybe one sencore broken?
would be NICE to get it to work cos..its wintertime here..alot snow...ABS and traction controll would make the driving much safer.

Most likely one of the wheel speed sensors has gone bad. You have to replace the entire wheel bearing assembly to get a new sensor in there. You need a scanning computer capable of reading ABS codes through the OBD-II port to find out which wheel sensor is bad. I don't know who over there might have such a computer, maybe an Opel dealer? Are there any other GM service places over there?

deekster_caddy wrote:

Most likely one of the wheel speed sensors has gone bad. You have to replace the entire wheel bearing assembly to get a new sensor in there. You need a scanning computer capable of reading ABS codes through the OBD-II port to find out which wheel sensor is bad. I don't know who over there might have such a computer, maybe an Opel dealer? Are there any other GM service places over there?

i thinked a obout a other thing tho...the lst owner mentioned somethign about that he had changed the cars front bearings whit the drive axle heads? or how they r called in englisn ?:S....maybe...he broke something...did not conect somethign good enaf...well have to find it out soon as possible. but thanks for the tip. still will be waiting for more tips

Hmmm, We call the Drive Axle Heads CV Joints and CV Shafts, CV stands for Constant Velocity. I recently had a rear wheel bearing come unplugged, it's worth checking the rear connections too. Sounds like you'll need a computer to read the codes and tell you exactly what's wrong with the ABS system. It could be the ABS head unit too.

so apparently the "fixing" of my pcm abs and trac was only for one day. now they are both on again. what a pain. sorry if i got anyones hopes up

97rivsc wrote:

Amen!Amen!Amen!

after driving my riviera for a couple thousand miles after the guy before me installed the intense pcm, the trac off light, AND the ABS light turned off!!!! I am in complete happiness right now! and like a week before the winter snowstorms. someone just try and tell me that there is not a god! lol i might be a little dramatic but HAVE YOU SEEN WISCONSIN WINTERS?????

97rivsc wrote:

so apparently the "fixing" of my pcm abs and trac was only for one day. now they are both on again. what a pain. sorry if i got anyones hopes up

What did you try to fix it? What was the code?

i literally didnt do anything it just went away for a day on its own. then came back the following morning. by 'it' i mean the abs and traction control lights.

I never gave the ABS much thought until yesterday morning on my way to work ...it was a bit slick following an early morning snowfall and I had to stop at an intersection at the top of a hill, the Riv slid down the hill and I'm ashamed to admit...out odf panic,I pushed the brake pedal a bit too hard while bracing for an inevitable broadside. the ABS did what it could but gravity and inertia were too much to overcome my slide down the hill. Fortunatly the oncoming traffic was able to avoid me and there was no big crash but in pushing the brake I blew some part of the ABS out, I've been under the car a few times but so far have only been able to find a leak just in front of the driver side rear tire. I'm hoping someone can hel;p me refine my search so I can find the lsource of the leaking brake fluid.

I'm confused. You said it's leaking from the drivers side rear?

yes just ahead of the wheel, seems to be coming from behind a block that I can't identify

so finally my pcm that disabled both abs and trac, amazingly fixed itself today (again, but permanently this time) and now no lights come on and I am one happy camper! (sorry to butt in but i just had to rejoice a bit)

Isn't there a way to just pul a fuse to turn those lights off. I really don't care for traction control and the light is kind of bothersome at night.

Is there a fuse you can pull to turn these 2 lights off? Mine are on too. I really don't care if the traction or ABS are working, but the light does bother me at night.

Aaron, you said your abs light was also on for a short time after the install? and all you did to remedy this was a brake bleed? i'd like to figure out why the light is on. maybe i damaged one of the sensors during install.
i need a techII to diagnose hub sensors right? what can that tell me? just what side is misreading?

I don't know about the Tech II. Might have to try it and see. In my case, the ABS/TC light came on I believe because my SS lines failed, drawing air into the line, or possibly because the system detected uneven pressure, idk. This happened twice, once for each line. I've convinced that's why.

Even with my lines having holes and leaking, my pedal never felt spongy. There wasn't that much air in the line. In your case, you must have had a big pocket of air in there.

To make matters more confusing, I had a random ABS/TC light every once and a while, seemingly for no reason. This only happened after I installed the new calipers. It was so infrequent I didn't worry about it. We're talking maybe one trip in a hundred at most. I never did solve it, but after the lines failed, and I fixed them, ABS never came back on.

I have another theory that the ABS light will come on after lots of neutral coasting with ignition off, but haven't proven that yet. I think you can confuse the PCM and ABS/TC system that way.

Finally, I did install one new hub, but I saw no correlation between this and the ABS light. It had been off for some time before I installed the hub.