Clifford is now waiting for a mechanic at the Sioux Falls, SD Kenworth/Volvo dealer. My steel steed has a bit of colic and is not doing so well.
He gives me TCS light, several J1939 connectivity failure errors (Brakes, Air Bag, ) It started in Champaign, IL at the Volvo/Kenworth dealer. I had left him there to have a few things looked at and an estimate for repairs. When I got him back, I started him up, backed out and started getting the errors. TCS light kept flashing while sitting still.
Could not get out of starting off gear but could change it from 1-3 if sitting still.
Among the things I had them look at was that I was intermittently getting a CHECK FUEL TEMPERATURE error (J1939 communications failure). I had been seeing this off and on for the past couple of years. replugging the connector to the sensor seemed to stop it for awhile. Those techs I asked about it said that it was probably a sensor going bad and was mostly just to detect when gelling might occur. Since I got it back I have not seen this fuel temperature error again but now have all these other errors.
When I could not drive it off the lot I left them the keys, they kept it for 3 more days and when I came to pick it up they said I needed a new transmission computer (I have the diagnostic printouts).
At that point, the mechanic that worked on it came up and said he just road tested it and it was working fine but nothing other than pulling diagnostics had been done. So I haggled about the outrageous price ($768) they wanted to charge me for the 7+ hours labor (the mechanic said it took forever for him to download the service manual????), paid a reduced amount and left. Interestingly, the service manager seemed eager to offer to change my Autoshift to a straight manual for about $700. Said he had done that to a few autoshifts for people not willing to pay the $4000 price for a replacement transmission computer.
But It has worked fine ever since... until we stopped in Onawa, IA for 3 days and then drove the 2 hours coming to Sioux Falls, Sd. It was fine until I hit a really bad dip across the driveway of the FlyingJ in Sioux Falls. That shook our teeth and apparently, Clifford's, too. Ever since then, solid errors! This screams bad connector or worn wire insulation to me, not bad TCU.
Ever since hitting that bump I have found that it struggles with autoshifting and gives me a solid CHECK BRAKES NEXT STOP msg. I can put it into HOLD and manually up/down shift with the button (Gen I) but I have to match the engine speed to the ground speed in each gear. It is not autoadjusting the engine speed. It seems that I can drive it that way but I can upshift it easier than down shift. Seems to Want to stay in the current gear until I stop dead then it goes back into the preset starting gear, ok. I can even go up through the range shift (5-6) point like this with no range crippling so I don't think the ECU is thinking that this is a serious problem.
At one point, I briefly saw an error message on the diagnostic panel that said that it could not determine ground speed. I don't know if ground speed is determined by the ABS / TCS inputs from the wheels or by a sensor on the drive shaft. I can certainly connect the dots if it is from the ABS/TCS source since the other errors seem to be coming from that subsystem. That would lead me to focus on the WABCO module connections to the ECU.
Just for Yucks, Here are the diagnostic readouts:
Brakes - j1939 communications failure
Check brakes at next stop
MID. 136
SID. 231
FMI. 9
Active
≠=========================
Transmission - SAE J1939. Data link data error
MID. 130
SID. 231
FMI. 2
ACTIVE. SUM. 0. I
SW ID 7765899*0794002
HW ID. EATON
==============================
AIR BAG
MID 232. SW ID. 34959*0092299*93
MID. 232. HW ID. VOLVO*3172088*
Any thoughts or comments ... other than Oh Dear! ?
