Stability system kicks in when cornering on dry pavement

I have had my 2010 Tacoma for about 16 months now. It had about 160k on it when I got it. For at least the last several of those months, it has had this problem: when cornering on dry pavement at between 35 and 45 mph, the stability system kicks in. The slip indicator light flashes, the slip alarm beeps, and the ABS kicks in. These are somewhat, but not drastically, tight corners; I can take them at 50 mph with my Honda CRV, but all of this occurs at 45 mph with the Tacoma. It does not happen if I slow down enough to reduce the g-forces. It seems to happen most on off-camber (not enough bank) corners. The vehicle had about a 4" lift on it when I got it, so I am sure the tires are somewhat over stock size.

It all handles well except for these hair-raising moments that kick in about the time I forget about it and take any curve that is 1) off camber and/or 2) generates a moderate amount of g-force.

This was truly hair-raising the first few times, since it make the vehicle seem as though it is almost non-steerable for about a second. It is essentially the same thing that happens if I take it to a parking lot full of snow and attempt to spin donuts. Loss of throttle, beeping alarm, slip sensor light flashing. I have gotten in the habit of driving rather cautiously, as it seems that someday, this could result in working my way across the yellow line into oncoming traffic.

I got with a Toyota instructor at the local community college, hooked up his laptop with the Toyota engineering software to the OBD port and ran it through a couple of iterations of some known corners where I can reliably replicate this if I go into the corner at 45 and do not brake just before the corner.

Here is the result: stability control kicks in at the moment the g-force is at its highest (seems like something around 3.2 if I recall correctly). Steering is at about 51°, and at the moment of truth, the yaw sensors well off from zero (don't remember exactly but can get a chart from the Toyota guy). Now, I do not feel any over- or under-steer, yet the yaw sensors are both way out there. How can there be yaw when there is no actual slip occurring? Maybe yaw on dry ground does not mean the same thing as yaw/skid in a Piper Cub overdoing the rudder. Wheel speed is not particularly drastic.

Now, I would be perfectly happy without any stability control, since it seems to be overthinking things for me. Maybe there would be some risk of oversteer at 52 on that corner, but certainly not at 45.

The Toyota guy, though, told me that 1) there is no way to just disable the stability system without also disabling the speedometer and that 2) there is no way Toyota would solve the problem by any possibility of reprogramming--something about legal requirements for stability control, liability, and Toyota just telling me it was non-stock if I were to point out the fact that it is not that safe having the stability system kick in when cornering on dry pavement.

Any ideas?

 

@Crom has a great write up on how to recalibrate it

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...ibrate-your-vsc-computer-the-easy-way.467485/

RE calibration did not work for me. I just dissable it every time I drive. From a stop if you press and hold the vsc button to the left of the steering wheel the system will be disabled. You will need to do this every time you start the truck hough.

 

I completely disabled my vsc because it stopped me from drifting Off-road

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/4lo-trac-abs-kill-switch-why-why-not.257444/#post-6254094

 

OP do you have a lift on your truck?

 

Yeah. It had about a 3" life, maybe 4", before I got it.

 

There is a write up somewhere on this forum to recalibrate. I did it on mine and it worked. All you need is a short piece of wire and it only involves jumping across two wires in the plug under your dash, I just can't recall what two wires.

 

Linked above already

 

No luck.

I tried the recalibration at this thread: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/how-to-reset-and-calibrate-your-vsc-computer-the-easy-way.467485. All signs were that the recalibration worked; all the right lights flashed the right ways at the right times. But it did not solve the problem. I went back to my favorite test corner where I can duplicate this by going 45 and not braking into the corner, and VSC kicked in again.

Is it possible that the lift on the truck is messing with things or that a yaw sensor is loose or bad? Or is it time for an ABS kill switch? Like this: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/4lo-trac-abs-kill-switch-why-why-not.257444/#post-6254094.

By the way, the Toyota program that reads all the sensors realtime via OBD2 provides a lot of detailed information by recording realtime data over time. This allowed me to compare on screen graphs of many sensor readings with the moment VSC kicked in. That was how I see that the only three numbers that seem to be involved are G-force, yaw, and steering wheel angle. The only thing missing is some way to determine the algorithm Toyota uses to force VSC on. Is there some publicly-available scanner available for reading sensors over time simultaneously like this? I may need this again some time.

 

More than likely it is the lift. Recalibaration doesn’t work for everyone for some reason.

 

But it's a good initial step to take.

 

Bump to this thread. My truck does this a LOT. Recalibration did not work for me either. Surprised this isn't discussed more.