2006 Mountaineer abs/traction control problem

[06Mountaineer]

Hey guys new to the site im a regular over on svtperformance and a few other ford sites as I have a 03 cobra as my toy. My daily is a 2006 mountaineer 4.0 awd. its been a great truck the last year I have owned it. ive driven it all over Germany as im US Army and im stationed over here. its got 94k miles on it, but looks like only 50k its a very clean truck. this past weekend it started acting crazy on me though, and almost left me stranded 3 hours from home while traveling with my wife. Heres whats going on..

Start to drive from a dead stop and go to hit the brakes and it feels like the ABS is kicking in. Then I start to drive again and the traction control light comes on and flickers like crazy, and pretty much my brakes lock up and I cant drive the truck it wont move. then it releases itself I move about 5-10ft and it kicks in again completely slowing me to a stop and locking up the brakes. and it keeps constantly doing this for a while. Eventually the ABS light will come on and then the truck drives fine but both ABS ad T/C lights are steady on. I brought the car to the do it yourself shop on my post here and got a few codes from it.. Also the U1900 code would not even clear out of the system no matter how many times I tried to clear the DTC's it would stay...

U1900 ABS can comm bus fault

**** Left front speed sensor no connection. Forgot to write the code down and turned the scanner back in, yes..idiot I know..lol

Just trying to figure out if its a simple wheel speed sensor that's bad or a abs sensor, or something a little more like a abs module or something.. but I cant drive the truck now its not safe like that so im using my wifes car till its fixed. and obviously parts aren't readily available here I have to order everything. just wanted to pick your guys brains and see if you could point me in the right direction. I would really appreciate it, I need to get this thing fixed and back on the road. Thanks!

 

[Explorer_PL]

Hi there and thanks for your service.

I had same issue with my 06. I could not move from the stop sign, the more I pushed the more brakes the system applied.

In my case it was one of the front wheel ABS sensors. I heard someone replaced just those, but I replaced the whole front hub/bearing assembly. They go for about 250-300 The job takes about an hour with an impact wrench. the hub is held by 3 bolts from behind. You'll need to remove the brakes, and the center nut on the axle.

 

[Flag Gibby]

Every time I have had the symptoms that you describe it was because of a damaged ABS tone ring or the tone ring came unseated and only needed to be pressed back on.
Also, if you completely turn the RSC system off and stay below 25 mph you should be able to safely drive it without the system kicking in and out.

 

[06Mountaineer]

Thanks for the info guys I'm gonna look more into it this weekend while I'm off. I checked the abs rings in the back of the truck and they seemed fine. Are there ones in the front to? They are on the Hub itself correct? Cause they aren't on the axles in the front. I gotta get this thing fixed ASAP lol

 

[Flag Gibby]

The ABS rings are pressed on to the back of the hubs on all 4 wheels.

 

[06Mountaineer]

Could a wiped out hub bearing cause the issue? Just jacked the truck up and so far the left front bearing is beat I can move the wheel side to side and up and down. Would that let the abs ring that's in there move around enough to mess with the sensor and cause my issue? I still have to check the passenger side also

 

[Flag Gibby]

The ABS ring is not inside the hub it is on the back of the assembly and looks like a bicycle gear. But that much play in the bearing could cause the sensor to not be able to pick up the signal from the ring or could even have damaged the ring.
See the image in this link.
http://www.fordparts.com/Commerce/C...ntaineer&initSearch=1&keyword=ABS Ring#Search

 

[06Mountaineer]

ok yeah I know what the abs ring looks like the back ones are mounted on the axles themselves, but the fronts you cant see anywhere and there is a sensor that is mounted right into the hub itself I think its either the speed sensor or the abs. but I ordered a wheel bearing assembely today anyway so hopefully it will be here end of the week. im thinking when I drive its moving around so much its losing its signal and causing this issue.. there is ALOT of play in that bearing im surprised I never felt it or heard any noise. other side is nice and tight thankfully. im gonna be doing a ton of travelling all over Europe in a few weeks so I gotta get this thing back on the road lol

 

[tdbil]

had the same problem with mine replaced wheel sensor didnt work. replaced the tone ring all lights went off everything works fine now

 

[Mama's2006EB]

I just spent last Christmas eve, in the driveway changing out the right front hub because of a similar problem to yours 06Mountaineer. It sounds familiar anyways. Thaught we blew the half shaft the way it drove. Bought the whole hub with ABS sensor cheaper than just the sensor??? Ya, wierd!! Turned out it was a good thing, the hub was crap, so the sensor was too. When it was the pulse ring, again, right side but in the rear, it just disabled the ABS most of the time but still moved fine (drove it 2 yrs that way).

My bet is on a bad wheel hub assembly which crapped out your ABS sensor. Almost guaranteed that's what it is. That being the case, the part was about $150 too FYI. Hope this helps.

 

[06Mountaineer]

thanks everybody for the info, I have a very good feeling that this is my problem. I ordered a brand new hub assembley yesterday from rockauto its a Timken one I know they are very good with there bearings and stuff. it comes with new sensor and everything as well. just gotta wait till the end of the week for it to get here, sucks living overseas sometimes getting parts for American cars is not fun lol. Since there is so much play in this hub im guessing that it damaged something else in there or is just messing with the system. only thing I can think of. guess we will find out this weekend ha. Im gonna make a post in the new member section today as well to introduce myself and some pics of my truck. this was just kind of an emergency to figure out.

 

[06Mountaineer]

well im still trying to fix this... rockauto is really screwing me right now I go on leave in lease then to weeks and I need my truck back up and my order got completely screwed up. somehow the customs form was lost for my part so it got sent back to them, talked to them Monday they shipped out my new one but here I am wed and all the tracking says is the electronic shipping info was received.. still hasn't left the warehouse.. I need this friggin thing ASAP so I can get the truck back on the road and they are killing me right now.. im pissed! im waiting for them to open then im going apeshit. lol

 

[Themightyquinn]

The ABS rings are pressed on to the back of the hubs on all 4 wheels.

The abs rings and magnetic pickups are inside the hub assy for the front wheels. No external rings or pickup

 

[06Mountaineer]

The abs rings and magnetic pickups are inside the hub assy for the front wheels. No external rings or pickup

That's what I figured as I didn't see an external abs ring. I disconnected the sensor on the side with the wore out bearing and now the truck drives fine just the abs and trac control lights are on, but it will actually drive instead of just locking up the brakes. definitely confirms that my issue is in the L/F area. If I ever get my parts I can hopefully take care of this issue fast.

 

[don blaze]

I have a 07 limited with the same symptoms abs,traction control and wrench lights coming on .....go about ten feet right front wheel locks up. Just changed drivers side front wheel hub assy thinking this was the problem .....wrong right wheel hub seems fine no movement or noise...any ideas?

 

[06Mountaineer]

My hub had a lot of play in it. Changed it out and I was good to go fixed the issue. You can unplug the sensor under the good to at least drive the truck it will disable to system u just won't have abs. I would check the other Hub for play

 

[don blaze]

Thanks for the help i was going to clean the right wheel sensor when i took if off the hub it snapped the piece was stuck in the hub tried to get it out with no luck so i will change the hub asap.

 

[Themightyquinn]

Thanks for the help i was going to clean the right wheel sensor when i took if off the hub it snapped the piece was stuck in the hub tried to get it out with no luck so i will change the hub asap.

Same happened to me when I swapped out my front hubs. The sensors were fine, but the wiring on the new hubs were a little different so I thought I would keep the original sensors. Nope. I had to roll with the new ones.

 

[skyhawk]

Sorry to dig up an old thread, but perhaps my experience might help others that are desperately googling around like I was yesterday...

I have a 2006 Limited with the 4.6 V8 and 6R60. While driving around slow, launching from a stop, etc, the advancetrac (skidding car) would illuminate and the ABS would engage. It was intermittent for a while but then got really bad on a road trip yesterday. The wrench symbol on, and it took a while to get moving from a stop. ABS was engaging and jerking it around..

I disabled the Advancetrac (hold button 5 seconds) and made my way to the closest Harbor Freight and bought their better scan tool that also reads ABS which I had been meaning to buy anyway. Visually checked the rear ABS rings and they looked OK.

Based on other fixes I read, I expected to see a wheel sensor code, but instead it stored U0101 Failure to communicate with the TCM, as well as U1900 CAN Communication Bus Fault. After clearing the codes, I restarted the truck and immediately I have U1900 and U0101 again. (Without attempting to drive it)

Did some additional digging around and found an article I will link below that explains how a bad COIL PACK can cause interference in the CAN bus, and throw all sorts of codes, including transmission related codes. The CAN wires to the transmission go right past the #2 ,3,4 coil packs.

I got some aluminum foil and folded it a few layers thick, and made a temporary 'shield' around the entire harness as best I could where it routes past the coil packs. Secured it with zip ties.

That definitely helped me get it home. It no longer gave me the communication errors, and did not do the bucking/jerking as it was earlier. What it did do is actually let me accelerate a little harder which would allow me to stir up a misfire code on cylinder 4.

To see if the problem was definitely related to the coil on #4 , I swapped it with #5 (opposite side of the engine) temporarily. The misfire code followed the coil as expected. However I got the CAN error again, presumably because there are CAN wires on the other side of the engine and I had not shielded those. Swapped it back, no more CAN errors.

I have aftermarket coils that are only 14 months old from O'reilly. I was able to exchange the bad one this morning and changed it in the parking lot. Cleared misfire codes, took off the aluminum foil shield and all is well. No more misfires or CAN communication errors.

So, hopefully this information is helpful to someone. The previous owner installed 6 of the aftermarket coils after the dealer charged $135 a piece for 2 Motorcraft coils. I think I'll just order 6 Motorcraft coils and be done with the aftermarket 'BWD' coils. After all, the originals lasted 150k miles, aftermarket, only 20K so far.

As the article states below, if you or your shop have access to a scope tool that can show the CAN bus voltage, the problem should be fairly obvious. It's also possible that a coil pack could be going bad (and emit noise into your CAN bus) without generating a misfire. (And sending many techs looking into the wrong direction)

https://certifiedtransmission.wordp...ion-u-codes-caused-by-faulty-ignition-system/