VSC engine light on, is Traction Control still working?

[GSmk3]

 

Hello everyone,

 

My VSC light suddenly turned on the other day, my local garage saw a small leak in the exhaust and that could be related. Is there any reason for the VSC to be on? The car is still running well. However the Traction Control light is also on at the same time with the VSC, does it mean it is also not working? I will try to get to the root of the VSC light however just want to make sure I still have traction control in these winter months.

Many thanks.

 

[johnatg]

The VSC light comes on with just about any glitch detected by the ECU. But the Traction control light should only come on when it is operating. It sounds a bit as if incorrect wheel speed is being fed to the control unit. Might be dirt on a reluctor wheel or a faulty wheel speed sensor or a circuit problem.

You really need a code to be read - most cheap OBDII readers only give engine codes so may well not indicate any Traction control/ABS problem. A garage with a full coverage code reader might help - might need to be a Lexus dealer.

I would think that traction control is still working in actual wheel slip conditions but it's not certain - also ABS could be affected.

[Kijan]

I had a sort of error set few days ago with Vcs, abs, trc, afs, check brake system and such (christmas tree on the dashboard) - switched car off for about 5 mins and they were all gone. No CEL light, no error code in torque pro, but once I did full diagnostics with Carista and it found one error in ABS there I could reset. I would recommend here checking with that phone app or Techstream if you have access to it (on the side Battery shown 14.4v at the time of the issue, so I excluded that option). 

Since reset did about 150km and no sign of any issue, so I would call it a fluke. 

All the best

[GSmk3]

 

@johnatgThank you, great tip about the wheel speed. Yes I've learned VSC can come on for just about anything. The car is nearly 15 years old now, I don't want to spend too much on it, just want to do the essential thing. Do you know anyway I can check if traction control still working?

[GSmk3]

4 minutes ago, Kijan said:

I had a sort of error set few days ago with Vcs, abs, trc, afs, check brake system and such (christmas tree on the dashboard) - switched car off for about 5 mins and they were all gone. No CEL light, no error code in torque pro, but once I did full diagnostics with Carista and it found one error in ABS there I could reset. I would recommend here checking with that phone app or Techstream if you have access to it (on the side battery shown 14.4v at the time of the issue, so I excluded that option). 

Since reset did about 150km and no sign of any issue, so I would call it a fluke. 

All the best

Yes. my garage did try to clear it unfortunately it came back after a couple of days, same thing 😞

[GSmk3]

Quick update on this. So I found a welder to repair my exhaust blow, and also asked him to clean the O2 sensor. All light gone! So the traction control light just went on for the same reason as VSC: O2 sensor. I suspect traction control would still perform if I hadn't repaired the exhaust. All good now. 

[Kijan]

Great finding! Happy to see it resolved your issue and I may follow your trail here, as I had same errors coming and going away again. They tend to happen if I switch off car for a moment after drive, then they pop, I switch it off again and they are gone, so may be that sensor is on the way out. No difference on the car operation during that

[Thackeray]

On 11/9/2021 at 12:05 PM, GSmk3 said:

on the side battery shown 14.4v at the time of the issue, so I excluded that option

If the Battery was showing 14.4v, that suggests the reading was taken with the car in Ready mode. This is around the voltage that the hybrid Battery feeds to the 12v system to recharge the 12v Battery and doesn't indicate the health of the 12v Battery.

If you leave the car overnight and then check the 12v Battery without starting the car, it will probably show around 12v. If it shows below that, say, 11.5v, that might be the cause of all the warning lights.

On a lot of Lexus cars the brakes are pressurised when you open the driver's door. (You can hear the pump running.) I don't know if that's the case in the GS450h but it's probably worth taking a Battery reading after this, too, but still before pressing the start button. This might explain why initially you get error messages if the 12v Battery is depleted by the brake pressurisation but they are gone if you try again after leaving the car for a few minutes, which would give the Battery time to recover assuming the brakes didn't need to be pressurised again.

If the Battery is the original it would almost certainly be on its last legs. But even if it's been replaced it might not be holding the voltage if the car hasn't been used a lot during covid lockdowns.

[Kijan]

Oh you may be absolutely right here - ai just connected right after the night and reading wasnt that generous! 

Thanks! 

[Thackeray]

I would have thought 12.1v was fine. I think it's about 50% charged but that should be plenty to get the car into Ready state. If you still get error messages at this voltage it looks as if the problem is elsewhere. But if you hadn't been using the car much when you saw the error messages, the voltage might have been a bit lower and caused the problem.

[Kijan]

Oh misread part with the above 12v, sorry! Right, so that thing should be ok, especially considering that last night temperatures went below 0 and right now it's like 4 degrees. I will keep monitoring the situation on it and probably make own topic if things get worse, as I feel bit bad for ninja'ing GSmk3 thread

Just attaching video of what I could see. 

To clarify when it happened - I got about 50km into motorway, stopped on parking for a smoke, came back to car after like 5 min and upon driving these are errors that popped. Then I turned car off for a minute and all worked fine. I drove about 500km since then in total no return of anything. I will try to get better pattern on that if thats possible, or hope it will just go away 😂

Edit: added screenshot of deeper obd check. I can reset the error, but did it while back and it seem to register again every now and then. Also dash is clear from any faults at this moment

[Thackeray]

1 hour ago, Kijan said:

To clarify when it happened - I got about 50km into motorway, stopped on parking for a smoke, came back to car after like 5 min and upon driving these are errors that popped. Then I turned car off for a minute and all worked fine.

If the car had been running ok for 50km and you just stopped for five minutes I would guess that it's very unlikely that the 12v Battery caused the problem. It would have been fairly well charged while driving. My only other thought is that the power lead clamps might not be securely fixed to the Battery terminals. But otherwise my guess would be that it's something else causing the error messages. It will be interesting to hear if you have the messages pop up again.