Ford Advancetrac problemo.

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Feb 16, 2009
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2012 Ford Fusion 62K miles. Was driving in a light rain the other day and a warning came on screen.. Service Advancetrac. Also popped up an icon of a car skidding, and the ABS light. Warning light goes on and off and chimes.. the only issue with drivability is that the ABS wants to work when stopping at stop signs or stop lights..or any mid level pressure of the brakes.

I have been on forum reads and youtube.. i have tried to reset the 'soft code' by unhooking the battery with the key on (ford thing).. so obviously its a hard code. I hooked up my OBD and no codes present. I am guessing that i need an OBD reader that reads ABS codes? I called O'Reillys and they said theirs does. Unknown if that is true yet.

I also read where it could be speed sensors.. and some guy on youtube said to clean them because rust gets behind them. I did no help.

While pulling one of the wheels i noticed that one of my strut springs were broken.. nice. It looks as if it could either be new or years old..ive never noticed it but wasnt looking either. I read where this is a somewhat common thing as well.

The goal here is to not go to the dealer.. and how does someone service the advancetrac? Will the OBD reader that scans ABS tell me what is causing this?
 
You need someone with a scanner that can pull ABS codes. That should direct you to which corner is acting up, causing your false ABS activation.

If you want to check something yourself, you can check the tone rings on the front axles. It helps to have the front end of the car elevated. Look at the wheel end of the CV axle and you'll see a toothed ring on the outer joint, rotate the tire so you can check the entire circumference. I can almost bet you'll find one or both of them have cracked and split. Very common Ford problem, especially in rust prone climates.

Here's a video to help clarify, as I'm horrible at describing car diagnostics:

 
I'm willing to bet that broken spring is throwing off the speed sensor causing the ABS to act up and disable the Advancetrac.

Of course you could also have a bad speed sensor or damaged harness as well...but I'd fix the spring first and inspect the wiring for any damage.
 
Without the codes, everything at this point is a guess - some are educated, but still a guess.

Get a code reader that will give you those codes and work from there, unless a visual inspection makes it crystal clear what the problem area is (which sounds like was done, but only found a likely different problem).
 
My experience with 2 Ford pickups.... service advancetrac is almost a generic for a lot of faults. It covers a lot of things. On the Ford truck forums where I started looking there were over 100 pages of "what fixed mine" and there were so many different answers. Lots of I fixed this and three weeks later it came back. My own experience is the Ford dealers can't figure it out either. Two trucks, five different Ford dealers, and each time it was over $400 and it always came back. Sure they read the codes, I did too before it went in, but it didn't mean the code pulled was going to fix it.
However, with it being a generic code, I think they might have fixed something, and the code came back on something else.

Good luck, there are a lot of frustrated people with this one.
 
all great advice. I will pull codes then go from there. Definately have to get new struts.
 
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