VSA and /!\ light - 2005 Honda Civic Type S

[W-f2oc1]

Hello,

I have a Honda Civic 2005 Type S - 2 litre Petrol and need help with some warning lights on the dash. I've been to a few local garages and they've connected their scanners (snap ons) and they've said that the car isn't communicating with the scanners and they can't pull any codes.

For the last year or so I've had the VSA and the triangle with exclamation lights pop up on the dash when driving. They used to pop up every couple of weeks and they stayed on solid until I restarted the car and then they didn't come back on for a few weeks. Recently they've started to pop up every day and on every journey.

Sometimes when I've parked the car and it's idling the lights will randomly pop up, I've noticed that now they don't disappear after I turn the car off/on again, I have to drive the car a bit and then turning off/on again will make them disappear. Sometimes the lights will pop up when I press the brake pedal. They will pop up randomly, even when the engine is off and the ignition is on sometimes they'll pop up.

The only lights that come on are the VSA and triangle lights, no ABS light.


Any help would be appreciated, maybe there's someone that has had the same issue as me and can advise on what the issue could be?

Thanks

[RichFN2]

Are you limited to a certain rpm at the moment but with an engine that appears to be performing OK? this happened to me and it turned out to be the VTEC solenoid valve. Most petrol engines have them and there is a mesh filter that can become blocked over time but mine had simply failed which is rare.

If your handy with spanners they are located a few inches below where the rocker cover sits at the back of the engine. Mine is an FN2 Type R and this was quite tricky as the engine sits quite far back but if you have the EP3 shape the engine is further forward giving you easier access.

[W-f2oc1]

Thanks for your reply RichFN2. The car performs as it did before and there's no loss in performance, the only issue is the lights that pop up on the dash, other than that the car performs absolutely fine. I'm only worried because the MOT is coming up in 2 months and it will fail if the lights show up at the garage, which I think they will.

The snap on scanner couldn't read anything when I took it to my local garage, do you think a Honda HDS scanner will be able to read it?

[RichFN2]

Are you able to engage VTEC at the moment? mine passed with the same faults displayed they just made a note that the EML was on, if you get anything that's ABS related then it will fail (not sure if my VSA error was on at the time though)

If your handy with a set of spanners i would check the solenoid gasket first, when you look into the error codes you have (and i have) it is quite common for the filter to be blocked and causing the fault which can be hard to get diagnosed by a fault code reader.

Depending where you are you could pop along to somewhere like TGM as they have all the proper Honda equipment. They read my fault codes and diagnosed the issue for free but sadly they were too busy to fit me in for the repairs...

[W-f2oc1]

Actually that's a good point, I don't really drive it hard enough for the VTEC to kick in, but I'll give it a go today and see if it kicks in when the VSA light is on. Ah right, I thought it would fail, I read somewhere that if the VSA button doesn't work then they will instantly fail it. If that's not the case then at least it will give me some more time. There's no EML or ABS light on mine, just the VSA and that triangle with exclamation mark in it.

I'll be sure to keep that in mind, because you never know it could end up being that. I'm not really handy with cars but I can ask my mechanic to check it out. I'm in Manchester and have found a garage in Stockport, the owner is an ex Honda technician and says he has the HDS machine and will charge £36 to connect it up to my car. Hopefully that'll read the codes and I can go from there.

Thanks

Edited by W-f2oc1 on Friday 21st August 14:33

Edited by W-f2oc1 on Friday 21st August 14:34

[W-f2oc1]

Just an update. I took the car to an independent Honda specialist garage in Stockport and they connected their HDS system to the car and it came up with the following codes...

52-1 ABS pump motor relay
104-1 sensor cluster failure
85-1 can relation failure

They took it for a test drive with the HDS connected and said that they tested the wheel speed sensors and they checked out fine. They also tested the circuits and have come to the conclusion that it needs a new ABS pump.

Weird that because the ABS light never lit up on my dash, it was only the VSA and triangle lights that were on. They told me to source the part from the breakers.

I took the car to my local garage and the mechanic said that once the new ABS pump is fitted the car might not recognise it and it might need to be re-programmed / re-coded. Is this true?

[thatdude]

So these faults being picked up - yes, they might be a genuine issue but they need verifying at those modules (measuring specific voltages etc at the connectors). I’d be more worried about that cluster and CAN codes, and start to go looking at those specific parts.

A scanner gives you a point to start from in a wider diagnostic investigation - but the found fault must be verified by further tests to determine if it really is that part, or something linked into it (for example, it could easily be a chaffed wire). You dont want to fire parts at it when i could be an inexpensive fix.

[malcolmbinns]

Contact https://www.ecutesting.com/

I had the same VSA light issue on my 2006 Honda Accord. I got a local garage to remove the ABS control unit, and they sent it to ECUTesting. Came back, refitted and golden ever since.

Malcolm

[W-f2oc1]

Thanks for the advice everyone, but I have now sold the car. I got a new ABS pump for it but that only fixed the ABS pump failure and can relation failure codes but not the sensor cluster code.