Traction Control randomly kicking in

Anyone here know the TCS on the '99+ cobra inside and out? What does it look at when deciding to kick in? My TCS has turned on 4 times today when it shouldn't have, under steady speed or mild accelleration in 4th gear, where there's no reason to lose traction.

I am 99% sure I've got a bad tie rod end, any chance that is effecting it? I'm pretty dumb when it comes to mechanical stuff but my assumption is that the tie rod end or whatever is wrong up there is causing something to go weird with that front tire and so the computer sees the rear tires spinning too much faster than a front tire and turns on the traction control. Does that sound reasonable or am I way off on how things work?

As to the tie rod end, it's been out of alignment for quite awhile, I would get it aligned and a few days later it would be screwed again. A month or so ago I took it in and they said the outter tie rod end was screwed, so I left it to be repaired. Came back, was told it turned out to be the inner tie rod end. A few weeks later, alignment is ****ed again and if I turn hard to the left I get a strange grinding noise. I'm guessing that the outter tie rod end was also ****ed and should have been replaced, too. So, this is what leads me to my conclusions.

GT-03 said:

Are you having any problems with your ABS?

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No, I' not, but I did realize something this morning. I just had new rear brake pads put on just over a week ago. I suspect the chances may be good that something got bumped or not tightened down enough and slipped or whatever and is causing the sensor to read wrong.

I also did some research on how TCS actually works, and it's looking like my first guess is wrong and not at all possible. At least if it's related to the brake work I had done, they should correct the problem for free.

MikeZ28 said:

no it's probally not related too your rear brake job. the only way i could see that happening is if a sensor got hit.

the reason your TC is doing this is you have a abs sensor falsing. that could be due too a bad sensor or a bad tone ring. to fix this you need to bring it too somebody with a scan tool and they can watch the wheel speed for each wheel and they can see witch one is dropping off.

the inner tie rod thing you talked about is way off. but get that inner fixed anyways.

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Damn. I take it that the sensor is in an unlikely place to have gotten bumped? I haven't had much luck in finding info specific to the tcs on the mustang, just general tcs stuff, so I've got no idea where the sensors actually are beyond guessing probably somewhere near the rear brakes.

This car is getting real close to getting sent packing. Starting over on another car loan isn't exactly something I want, but I sure as hell can't afford to make car payments plus pay for constant repairs. This makes a bad coolant reservoir (mine cracked somehow), bad water pump, bad inner tie rod end, probably bad outter tie rod end, and bad ABS sensor all within about 3 months.