Service Advancetrac, Hill Start Failure, Drive Settings Unavailable, and some other errors showed up on the dash

[McDimps]

So earlier this week I drove on the beach for the first time (had an absolute blast!) Also drove on the beach today. Both times I had it in sand mode or 4H, traction control off, whole 9 yards. I also had to air the tires down to 15 psi as the beach required it.

Everything was fine but towards the end both times I got an error message saying " service advancetrac" along with other messages that pretty much force you to have traction control on unless you go in 4L, can't use drive settings or trail control, just 4H, 4L and 2H. Granted it's all you need, but a little annoying to see the electronics give out.

But as soon as I get back on the pavement, it's like nothing ever happened. My tires still had low pressure, but immediately after leaving the sand all the lights went off. I read that lowering tire pressure can cause the service advancetrac message and Fords manual advises against doing it for sand driving. Could that be what caused all the issues?

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[BigMeatsBronco]

I did doughnuts in the snow and got same messages...

I believe the wheel speed sensors show the computer data that is out of range.

I cleared codes and continued on.

 

[McDimps]

I did doughnuts in the snow and got same messages...

I believe the wheel speed sensors show the computer data that is out of range.

I cleared codes and continued on.

I think after doing some reading the problem is I didn't disable advancetrac. Maybe that was the same issue for you as well?

 

[BigMeatsBronco]

no, I disabled it b4 doughnuts.

 

[McDimps]

Beats me then

 

[McDimps]

no, I disabled it b4 doughnuts.

How'd you clear codes though?

 

[BigMeatsBronco]

I keep a dedicated cheap laptop in Bronco at all times and mongoose ford cable....to clear codes or fix or diagnose issues.

I used forscan. the pro-cal tuner also will clear codes. and of course FDRS as well.

these days, the laptop in yer toolbox is better than an adjustable wrench was years back.

 

[mj63]

Probably a signal plausibility fault (my guess would be steering wheel angle or yaw rate sensor). Once back on the road, everything matches back up and the fault can clear itself.

 

[McDimps]

Probably a signal plausibility fault (my guess would be steering wheel angle or yaw rate sensor). Once back on the road, everything matches back up and the fault can clear itself.

What's the best solution in those cases?

 

[mj63]

What's the best solution in those cases?

Usually what will clear those faults is to turn the vehicle off, restart, then drive without sliding either end of the vehicle or spinning the tires until the faults clear. Cycling the ignition might not be needed in some cases - as you experienced when getting back on to the pavement (no longer sliding/spinning tires as well).

The longer explanation of plausibility checking/faults:
When using a signal as an input to a safety system (ESC/ABS/TC), you want to be sure that you can trust that signal does not have excessive noise or offsets from reality. The way that is generally accomplished is to use other vehicle sensor's outputs to back calculate what the original signal should be, and compare the directly measured signal to the expected value and if the two are similar enough, call it okay - and if not, call it bad, set a fault, and stop using it as a control input (basically turn off that safety system until you get back to all "okay" signals).

This process is used for many signals, but the ones that most commonly get flagged as 'bad' are steering wheel angle and yaw rate (they are related to one another through what is called a 'bicycle model' which is a function of vehicle speed). These are both critical inputs to ESC/ABS/TC so will cause those systems to be shut off if the signals get flagged as 'bad' (i.e. plausibility fault).

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