Help ! My ESP light has started flashing at me while corning to the right only, twice in three days of driving. This isn't heavy cornering... it started while cornering right onto an on-ramp close by, just after leaving the dealership where I just had an alignment done. ESP light flashes and cuts power to the engine until cornering is complete. I had brand new tires put on that morning at Discount Tire, then went to the dealership (45 minutes away) for the alignment. The dealership just had my DGC previously for 8 days for a Transmission Range sensor fault code and an EGR fault code (and a Rear Speaker open circuit code). They found I had a bad tire and needed an alignment also. So I agreed to pick up the DGC this last Thursday evening- Day 8-(after other issues were fixed), get new tires Friday morning, and return to have the alignment done. They almost didn't have time for the alignment, but they squeezed me in. Now I am supposed to take the DGC from Houston, Texas to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado this coming Friday morning (5 days away)!!! I don't have time for the dealership to sit on my vehicle for a week to be diagnosed again !!!! But I could only imagine what would happen trying to drive through the mountains like this !!! Could the alignment procedure have caused this problem ??? It doesn't happen every time turning right, but it happened twice since leaving the dealership (first time right after the alignment was done, second time Sunday evening).

 

Okay, I just took the same route (7 miles combined local roads and highway)I took earlier where the ESP flashing light happened, and low and behold, it happened ONCE, again, on the exact same turn it happened earlier today. Talk about a precision problem. Any thoughts ?

 

Okay, I took the DGC back to the dealership early this morning. It acted up on the way there, they scanned it for codes and they told me there weren't any stored codes. They told me they took it for multiple test drives and couldn't reproduce the problem, couldn't find anything wrong with it. I drove it off the lot, and had no problem reproducing the problem many times on my drive home. Does anybody have any suggestions on what may be wrong with it? I leave for the mountainous region of Colorado in 4 days, any suggestions on what may be wrong, what I can check?

 

If you can reproduce the problem, you need to take someone from the service department for a ride to show them what is happening.

 

I offered to test drive it to see if I could reproduce the problem and the service advisor told me it wouldn't do any good if the computer isn't storing any codes. I got the feeling they knew the problem I was reporting, but they didn't know how to fix it. Seems like the newer generation of mechanics only know how to fix something only if there are codes to tell them what to fix it, old school troubleshooting has gone by the wayside.

 

Try another dealership. Buy yourself a scanner capable of reading ABS/ESP codes ($200+). When it fails and the light is on check for codes.

" Could the alignment procedure have caused this problem ???" Possible. Each wheel has a wheel speed sensor used by the system. Might inspect the wire harness and connection for each. A code will narrow down which may be at fault. Another common fail point is the steering angle sensor in the steering wheel.