Does anyone know if a dealer can void your warranty because you have oversized tires on? Can 315 -75-16 tires affect the stability control and traction control systems and damage them? I just had the engine light and "traction failed" light come on after going down VERY steep dirt road in low range. After several miles only the engine light stayed on steady. I disconnected the batt. and it has not come on again. Any ideas

 

Running larger tires should not void the warranty, especially one size larger. Lifting the vehicle to fit bigger tires can void things. Turning the t-bars will probably void some things if they see that's been done, and the problem is related. In other words, if your CV joints go bad, and you have your t-bars cranked up, they'll probably tell you it's not covered since you altered them from factory specs.

 

Hey man/wo-man I wrote you a very detailed explanation in your original post this morning. I'll cut and paste it into here

I can help you with this.

It's happened to me three times. Here is what the dealer told me and my results.

First off, my dealer shop guys got in touch with the actual GM engineers that designed the H3. They did this because this happened to me so many times. The engineers said there is a bug in the software that causes this to happen, even though there is nothing wrong. They said if you are turning the wheel to an extreme left or right while in 4 wheel locked mode and there is wheel slippage, this error message will occur, or if you are in normal AWD mode and the inner-most wheel of the direction you are turning slips while turned past a certain angle, ie turning out of a parking lot in the rain at a steep angle and the wheel slips. The check engine light goes off after a day or two, so you don't need to take it to the dealer to get it turned off.

The funny thing is the computer apparently doesn't keep a record of this happening. If you call On-Star, they will tell you there is a problem and to take it to the dealer. When the engine light goes off and you call them again, they will run a diagnostics of your car and tell you there are no problems reported. It's very odd.

I bet you also had the "Reduced power" mode enabling also. This is also a result of it. If you go back to normal driving for a day or so, everything will reset itself.

ANOTHER cause of this is an electrical short, which I also found. This happened to me twice, and then the third time because I found a ground wire I installed for my laptop/GPS hookup that was loose, and was able to recreate the error by intentionally disconnecting my ground wire from the chasis behind the stereo and just sparking it. It causes an error code on the PCM to be generated. I fixed that and haven't had the problem, but as I said, it happened twice before I even did any custom wiring.

I honestly wouldn't worry about it. If it doesn't go away within 2 days, disconnect the battery for 24 hours if you can. This also resets the system. If you do it for any less then that, you will probably still have the message.

Let me know if this fixed your problem. You should be ok. Like I said, it's a bug in the traction control system software, but nothing to worry about.