Ok so for a few months I have had a few lights on and I guess its time to figure out what the problem is. There are three lights that are constantly on. They are my traction controll light, my ABS light, and my tire pressure indicator light. any idea what could be causing this. I have took it to a few places and no one has the correct adapter to read the codes. Please Help and Thank you.

 

search here for "trifecta" .....


you most likely have a bad wheel speed sensor ... this causes all three of the mentioned systems to think there is a problem due to bad wheel speed being reported


problem is, you don't know which one is bad ...you need the "very good" code reader to get that info and in many cases than means going to the dealer unless you have a GOOD MINI smart mechanic


once you know which one, it is not a particularly difficult repair ... the sensor just screws into the hub and connects to a wiring harness ... sometimes the old one is a PITA to get out . . .

 

You can unplug the sensor connectors, connect to the leads and check for the pulses with an
analog multimeter or an oscilloscope while spinning the wheels to see which
sensors work and which don't, but that's a bit of work.

 

So I am guessing that each wheel has its own sensor?

 

Yes, as an example: that is how the system measures the wheel speed to determine if the TC needs to come on.

 

Couldn't you just buy one sensor, pick a wheel at random and install it. If it doesn't fix the problem then swap it around until it does. (assuming that all 4 are the same part).

You have a 25% chance right of the bat.

 

a professional grade obd reader (not the $50 variety, the $1200+ variety, will show which wheel sensor is not reading ... I had the same issue on my p/u truck and my buddies scanner found the bad sender by looming at the raw data as we drove around the block ... his was a snap-on that he uses in his transmission repair business ... it has plug in modules for each brand/year

 

Front and back sensors are different.

 

Or, if your power steering had been leaking for forever, start by cleaning the connector on the dream real that's covered in crap. That's all mine needed. It was coming in every day, since cleaning it, not one in several thousand miles.