2001 Pontiac Sunfire Trac Off Light

JONEELI

MEMBER
2001 PONTIAC SUNFIRE
4 CYL
2WD
AUTOMATIC
95,000 MILES

Year: 2001
Make: Pontiac
Style / Body: Coupe 2D
Engine: 2.2L I4 MPI Automatic
Country of Assembly: United States
Model: Sunfire SE
Mileage: 95,000 miles

My "Trac Off" light comes on when traveling at city speeds of 30 mph or less; when I have come to a stop light and accelerate it is as if the gears are shifting hard/jerky. The car will stall out if I am pulling into a parking spot or at a complete stop, but if I turn it off it starts fine and the "trac off" light ususally won't come back on for a day or so. This has been going on for a few months; and I have kept up with regular maintenance like oil changes, transmission fluid replenished when low, and a new battery (all were needed fixes, seeming unrelated to the above issue). I've taken in my Autozone and they didn't read any codes on the diagnostic; since the Trac Off light doesn't stay on permanently. Any ideas what this may be? This car is worth maybe $1000 and I'm sick of putting more $ into this piece of junk. (Also - I checked my Vin# against the Public Recalls for this model, of which it "says" that my vehicle is not affected. On a side note, should I trust that my car has no recall issues?)

1 Reply

FACTORYJACK

MECHANIC
4,159 POSTS

Autozone is more than likely not going to be able to extract the codes that may be affecting your ABS system. They are usually confined to emissions related codes. It will be necessary to obtain the code(s) to go to the next step. If this is a speed concern, it could have some effect on shifting, the stalling I am not so sure of. Outside the possibility of ABS faults causing the indicator, it could be inadvertently turned on by the ABS module, or IPC. Since it is somewhat intermittent in nature, I would lean toward a possible ABS fault.