Off-Topic Lincoln LS Traction control

Sorry for the Off-topic question.
Was driving a 2001 Lincoln LS on the Highway when the traction
control started to apply the brakes slowing me way down. Made it home and let the brakes cool for awhile. Got in and foun that
the brake pedal is very mushy and it has very little brake
action. Any body got a clue on this. how about a location for
the trac/control relay. Also smells like a burnt motor
or solenoid somewhere. Thanks for the help!


PS GO COLTS

What PLC are you using?

Typical auto mechanic shop rate: $45.00/hour.

PLC programming rate: $100.00/hour

Net increase: $55.00/hour

Christoph,
The burned motor smell is probably due to overheated brake pads. Some times a forklift driver at work will forget to release the parking brake & the smell is terrible when they drive by my work area. Mushy pedal could have a lot of different causes, water in the brake fliud, air in the brake lines, worn brake pads, bad power brake booster valve, etc....I can't imagine why anyone would connect a traction control device to a vehicles braking system. I have seen stranger things before though. I usually think of a traction control system as one that directs the power from the engine to the different wheels depending on the amount of wheel slippage at the time. Kind of like the full time 4 wheel drive that kicks in only when needed. Sounds to me like you had a disc brake caliper freeze up. When the caliper freezes in the clamped position, the pads won't back away from the rotor when the pedal is released. Your problem could be something entirely different though. With modern anti-skid brakes in use I would take it to a reliable shop for repairs. Indiana winter is hard on the cars parts.

Oh yeah GO Colts

I assume you had 'Traction Control' displayed, and that's how you know it was applying the brakes. One wheel sensor partially failed. If it failed fully, the computer would have detected it. With a partial failure, the computer thought you were in a slide.
The mushy pedal is caused by warped brake pads from overheating. They need to be replaced.
There's also a good chance you also have warped rotors. Overheating rotors will get a hard, smooth surface. If that happened, there's nothing you can do to fix them. That's probably why you have little braking action. Continuing to drive with the brakes applied possibly caused a lot of damage. Towing would have been cheaper.

Disconnecting a wheel sensor should cause a fault and disable the system.

For all the high tech I sell I am glad I am a low tech kind of guy.

I didn't buy the ABS braking system either. It took a few years for my insurance company to figure it out that is was all bogus but they did figure it out. It is hard to beat the human computer.

Simple ABS is a good thing. It keeps the wheels from locking up by reducing brake pressure on the offending wheel(s). Traction Control is a different matter. In addition to the standard ABS system, it can also apply the brakes. That's fine, as long as it can tell the difference between loss of traction and a hardware failure.
I'm a GM man, and fully trust the system on my luxury SUV. I don't have anything nice to say about luxury vehicles from Ford.