happy ending

[buddaman]

this past weekend we went up to death valley with sclr for a weekend of off roading and geology tour with the club. It started off great, then 30 miles above death valley on the way to saline valley I step on the brakes and get a fault that says hdc unavailable, transmission fault, vehicle now lowering. This put me in access mode . This is when I start to panic, I turn off the key hoping to reset everything and no luck to my avail.
We push on in access mode as i have no choice. We stop for lunch and try a rebboot to no avail. Now i think im screwed.30 miles to the main road and the lippencott trail still ahead of us 3 miles of down hill trail 10 feet wide and totally rocky. By this time i've dragged my muffler numerous times and who knows what else.
We stop at teakettle junction for a break when greg johnson a new member of the club suggests that we try putting a set of his lift rods on and i figure why not at this point. greg the trooper climbs under the car and in five minutes replaces the lift sensor rods with a new set he had with him, and amazingly the car lifts out of access mode to normal position. after that I was able to continue down the lippencott through salene valley and on to our camp in death valley.
Thanks greg, My recommendation is that no one should ever go off road without a set, you can find them at johnsonrods.com yae greg for saving us. By the way it turned out to be a breaklight sensor that started the whole mess and 2 rear wheel sensors all covered under extended warranty
im glad to be home

 

[Houm_WA]

I don't know what to say. Greg gets clowned on this board last week for selling his rods and what does he do? Gets his buddy to come on here and tell this stupid-ass story! That brake switch is a $15 part.

The whole rod thing is a $15 mod as well.

 

[buddaman]

it's only lame if your not stuck. say what you want it did get me home. it wasn't a brake switch it was a sensor that shut down the computer. no terrain response and no hdc. You try to get home in access mode. I'm happy greg was there. 15.00 or 100.00 dollars it got me home. you may think it isn't a true story go to sclr.org and look at the posts about the death valley geology tour and you will see everything said is true
have a nice day

 

[Houm_WA]

It might be true. It probably IS true. ...but the point here is that Greg, and now you, are constantly peddling Johnson Rods! We ALL know about the well-documented Rod-mod. Hell...I run it too! I think I can speak for all of us in saying that while we appreciate the work being put into making the mod available for those who don't want to do it themselves, we don't appreciate the used-car-salesman approach on this board. We're here to exchange INFORMATION...not solicit or be solicited to.

Have a nice day yourself.

 

[blackforestham]

Glad you made it out. I'm very surprised that swapping out rod sets had any real effect on this outcome. A fault is a fault is a fault - regardless of anything. A bad sensor is a bad sensor. Period. This is not a fix. Recommending aftermarket rod sets as a safety valve is just plain irresponsible. I suspect that during the swap, you guys indexed the sensor arms far out enough of spec that the dash was freaking out with all sorts of fault codes. This, if anything reset the ECU to sweep and search for "new" inputs. If the sensors were truly bad, they would have continued to bomb out the airbags to the bumpstops no matter what rods were on. "Soft" and "Hard" resets should have taken care of this issue for you. I'm happy it worked out for you.

 

[buddaman]

all the faults previously mentioned were there before we put on the rods. after returning home the new sensors were recalibrated back to original settings. We tried hard and soft resets and it did nothing. according to the dealer the brake light sensor caused all the falts including the lowering of the vehicle. For what ever reeason the rods got us home it kept the truck out of access mode for whatever reason. I will be using them in the future when I go off rd I like the extra couple of inches.

 

[Trynian]

Sounds like it was not bump stop limp mode, but he was stuck in access mode not the bump stops. Using the rod allowed him to run in access mode but at normal height to get home.

Weather they would prove usueful for any other fault that may occur is another discussion.

In the long run you are better off carrying a fault code reader/clearer.

 

[buddaman]

would the fault code reader reset the sensors faults or just clear them.

 

[Trynian]

would the fault code reader reset the sensors faults or just clear them.

The lower cost fault code reader would only read and clear faults which essentially would be ressetting the sensor fault. If the fault persist ie the bad break light sensor, it will come back, but it would also tell you that the break sensor was bad.

The higher cost units like MSV-2 allows you to raise or lower the vehicle at will regardless of the sensor readings. But, it requires you to have a laptop handy.

Beyond the suspension both types of units can save you a lot of head ache trying to figure things out in the middle of nowhere. Like who would think to check the brake light sensor for a suspension fault which is a known issue unless they had read it as a possible cause on one of the forums.

 

[Houm_WA]

buddaman I thought you said in an earlier post (same thread, about 3 posts up) that it was NOT the brake light sensor?