ABC scare
I was driving a 04 cl600 yesterday of a friends that he thinks has the starting of an accumulater issue. He drove up to my house came in for a minute then we left, the car was just a tad low up, front but never completely drops. As I Starting going and I could feel it move up in height just a bit as I put it in drive.
We got on the freeway and after about 10 mins I felt the cars body move down toward to left as I turned a bit left then I turned it to the right immediately and it moved down on the right. It was like it was having an issue auto leveling. Then as I turned left to see what the heck was happening it wildly dropped over left and I turned it right and it dropped wildly right, oh and as it did that the other side would go up to normal. When it would drop on the left the right was normal then turn it a bit right it would drop and left would be normal. I pulled to the side of the road and popped the hood to check for leaks or what not, and hit the abc button to check that and it did fine.. I did it several times and it hasn't done it again so far.
My thinking is that the auto leveling accumulater is failing and it caused a vacuum pocket so it dropped once it got to the pump or the pump is starting to have issues maintaining pressure meaning it's going out.
If anyone knows about this please share any info.
I would hate to see my bud crash that sweet ride.
Thanks all.
Thanks for the replies I can always count on great responses from my fellow forums friends.
It's also likely not a pump issue
My bet is bad sensors or valve block problem . Sticky valves often cause lifts and drops
If the accumulator blew wouldn't the ride be rough or stiff? It still rides nice and smooth.
I had my fair issues with abc so I know there is no such thing as just a one time anomaly, it will maybe give you a lil tap on the door that a problem is coming then it just busts the door down and craps on your new carpet...lol
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There are three vertical sensors. One on each strut tower and one inside the rear cabin, under the rear paneling near the right side strut if I remember correctly.
STAR won't show faults when these start to go bad.
I find it crazy that as sophisticated and deep the STAR diag.can dig into the systems and sensors that it can't find out which sensors would be bad, or code triggered.
Thanks for this info.
Does anyone have a good diagram for what sensors is what and the location of each and the part number. I guess replacing all the sensors is the only thing we can do.
Since I will be helping my buddy do this any help with the diagram and part numbers would be very much appreciated.
As always thanks to all for your helpful replies.




The sensors are just sending erroneous data to the ABC control module which then reacts. The system doesn't realize this is a fault and therefore there is no error code to store.
The part # of the sensor is A0045423518 -- Available for $40ish a sensor (new).
The body acceleration sensors consist of an electronic vibration module (operating principle spring/mass system). They record the vertical body accelerations and supply signals to the control module.
As stated, there is one on each side of the engine compartment right next to the strut towers. They are little black boxes that are about the size of a match box with a wire running to them. Unplug the connector, remove the screws and reinstall in reverse.
They look like this:

For information, the recalled sensors from the early 2000's had the following "week" codes.
The recalled sensors will have one of the following week codes:
06 W 20
06 W 21
06 W 22
06 W 23
06 W 24
06 W 42
Last edited by awiner; May 26, 2016 at 02:00 PM.



it would be interseting to see what a star scan shows.

