I was blessed with a warning this evening a few miles into my return trip from a friends home. I believe the warning message came up red and I also had one telling me that the traction control was inoperable.

To be honest it was late and it startled me -- I can't remember if it was red or amber - but I believe it was red. I had no power and I was barely able to move to the side of the road. I also can not remember if it said "restricted performance" as I shut the car off when I came to a stop - but I definitely was in restricted mode.

I looked around to see if any fluids were leaking, and after finding nothing I started the car ......... no warnings?? I drove the car home - staying off the highway -- no problems for the whole 1/2 hour drive.

Does anybody know what trigers the red vs amber warnings - I'm now at my vacation place so no code reader and a hour plus drive home.

I see you can get this for the brake light switch, TB , some say speed sensor. I did get a "check gas cap" a few day ago that I have never had before and I recently changed out an O2 sensor and some tires - but all of this was a few hundred miles ago and I don't see how any could be related??


It's really dangerous how the car operates when this occurs. I can see the logic of having a restricted performance if the car is about to suffer a melt down -- but sensor failures should not result in this drastic operation. Give me all the warning lights and shut off systems but let me get out of harms way!!

 

I can't help you with the colors, but failsafe mode is a scary occurrence
this is my experience with it:

first time it happened on the interstate, pulled over, shut it off and turned it back on, car was fine
happened again about a month later, again a shut off and turn back on with no problems.
then after a few more months of no problems it started happening multiple times a week. took it to the dealer, they found nothing of course!
no problems for a few weeks, then it happened about 5 times in a 15 mile drive in one day

each time failsafe mode happened it could be fixed by shutting the car off, waiting a few seconds, and then turning the car back on

had the car towed to the dealership from the garage, dealer decided to put in a new throttle body, since then I have never had a problem!

 

Pull into a station or an AutoZone and get the codes. This situation can come from many causes. Get the codes!

 

Agreed, pulling the codes by some means (brake-down cover or local garage???) is really the only step forwards without changing all parts till you strike it lucky.

Word of encouragement though, mine did the same thing a few months back and it was just two failed coils, leading to sporadic misfires, and the thing went berserk (Restricted performance/fail-safe mode, no TCS/ABS and i thought most suprising... low brake fluid) swapped the duff ones out, reset codes and as they say Roberts your mothers brother.

Fingers crossed it's a simple (and cheap) fix...

Alex

 

I took it out twice today for about 15min each time and it ran fine.

My plan is to drive it home on Monday morning and run the codes and hopefully something simple shows up.