Weird ABS / VSC / TC malfunction

[Jim1964]

So today, the poltergeist that inhabits the electronics in the Jeep decided to try something new. Climbing the ascent to Hermit pass in CO, I started feeling intermittent brake drag and hearing ABS noises. This is in 4L, where TC is supposed to be off. Dashboard says it was off. There are no indicators lighting up to indicate either system operating, or malfunction.

This behavior persisted through restarts, in and out of 4L, turning off hill start assist, going to 4H and turning TC off and on. Nothing changed the malfunction. If I stopped when i felt it or heard it, and started forward, it continued dragging. If I reversed it would behave itself for a short distance again. It was using the RR and LF brakes, which I could tell from the elevated temps. RF and LR were stone cold.

Reversing course down the mountain, no further issue all the way down.

For background, this rig gets wheeled more days than not, and this is a new manifestation. Other than a bumper and winch it’s all stock.

Not really looking for a solution. I hope this post helps someone else someday, but my solution will be to make this problem someone else’s problem.

Sponsored

 

[mwilk012]

brake lock differential?

I don't know for certain if it can be disabled entirely or not.

 

[Jim1964]

Not the BLD, I am familiar with how those operate, I’ve had several vehicles with that feature. AFAIK the Rubicon doesn’t even have it, since it has lockers.

This was for some reason applying the brakes and not releasing; at first I thought it was a parking brake. Take your foot off the accelerator and it would stop abruptly, just like the driver was two footing it and had the brake depressed.

For background, there’s a history of electronic glitching here. Just off the top of my head:

Door locks activate randomly at speeds other than programmed, and after driving for long periods at higher speeds.

”Performance limited “ message in the gauge cluster when coasting. Disappears as soon as you touch the accelerator.

Offroad pages failed to load for a whole day. Next day reappear.

Cooling fan cycling up to maximum speed, when the AC is off, and the engine and transmission fluids are all below 200 degrees. At outdoor temps 50 or less, even.

Downhill compression braking sometimes effective, at other times it insists on idling up to 2500 downhill.

All the above are random and nothing I can reliably reproduce. In all fairness, I doubt a dealer could reproduce these types of issues in any reasonable amount of diagnostic time. They’d have to hook up a recording diagnostic tool and drive endlessly waiting for it to glitch.

Sponsored