CEL - Traction Control off & Murphys Law

Man I did not need this now.

Got off work at midnight, it's 12 degrees outside & snow squalls are in the area. I start up my truck and the dreaded "check engine light" comes on. Also, on my dash is the message "traction control is off".

On the way home I stopped to get gas & I checked the oil level which was ok. Eventually I got home at around 1am.

I'm grateful to be home but I'm not looking forward to finding out what this could be. I'm fearful that this is going to hit my bank account hard.

I now have to find out what codes this thing is throwing and how much it's going to cost. I'm hoping that the traction control being lost is what's causing the CEL to come on.

2014 with 100,444 miles. 4.6 engine 4x4 SR.

 

First thing I would check is to make sure the ABS wheel speed sensors are plugged in properly and their cords aren't broken. Pretty easy thing to check visually.
I don't know about there but Autozone here will read your codes.

 

Check battery

 

Thanks Scuba and Tiamat.

I will check both on Saturday 12/21/19. I have to get ready for work in about an hour. I have Saturday off....if they don't stick me for overtime.
I have an inexpensive code reader and will pull codes too. I just have to find the reader which shouldn't be to hard to do.

I suspect the cold temperature of 7 degrees combined with the snow squalls I had to drive through had something to do with this issue. Saturday will warm into the upper 30s to low 40s which will be nice.

When I first got the truck though, it was in Temps of down to -40 a couple of times and -30 a few times. It was the 4th coldest winter on record for the last 100 years in NY and I was working in a relatively high elevation. No problems back then. Maybe this super fine snow we had got into an area this time around.
I will keep you guys posted. Maybe my problem can help others solve theirs. Maybe this will help Toyota as well.

 

What you need to do is check the code. Just randomly checking stuff and guessing is gonna be a waste of time. A CEL can be any of a hundred different things, and 99% of the time other lights on the dash come on just to help grab your attention. A CEL is usually pretty mild and something like a wire or sensor just happened to go out. I wouldn't sweat it, I also wouldn't go chasing random things like replacing gas caps or fuses or whatever. Go to a car parts store and rent their OBD2 reader and scan the code in the parking lot and google and see what it is. Hell, half the time you can clear the code and that's it, truck just freaked out for a moment.

 

A CEL will make the traction control inop. That is normal.
If your battery is getting low it can set a code for your crank sensor, but your voltage would have to drop quite a bit.
Read the code and let us know what it is

 

Pull the code and see what it's telling you, disconnect the battery for 30+ minutes to reset the ECU and see if the cel comes back.

 

Good News!!

Went out at 3 pm yesterday and no "check engine light".

It was 21 degrees outside and the truck sat in the sun. I got in it to go to work, started it up and no CEL.

I got off work at a little past midnight and even with it being 9 degrees outside there was no CEL!!!!

I'm thinking some of the flurries we had when it happened must of froze something up to cause it.

BTW my battery is super duty with over 1,000 cold cranking amps and less than a year old. I'm not saying I don't have a weak battery but all indicators point to a strong one.

If I get a chance Saturday I'll still hook up my code reader to see if it says anything.