I got stuck in some mud and water today, dirt was looser than I thought, fortunately someone pulled me out. I don't have CDL but I thought the brakes were supposed to stop the spinning wheels so the other wheels could get traction. I was about mid hub deep in very muddy water water, no traction on the rear wheels, but the fronts had traction but they weren't turning at all. This is supposed to work with the ABS sensors to sense wheel spin, right? It wasn't working at all. Any thoughts?
Thanks

 

The TC is supposed to kick in automatically, but the wheel needs to actually spin faster than the other wheels before the system detects it and applies the ABS pulsation to the brakes, thus sending power to the wheels with grip. The TC should light up on the dash and you should hear it kick in. If you kept applying the brake you may have been controlling the wheel spin too much on your own, and the TC never kicked in. Does your '01 not have CDL in the t-case or is there just no linkage. If it's in the t-case you can still manually engage it with a 10mm wrench.

 

As D2Guy says, you need to get the wheels to spin before the TC will do anything. Slowly spinning wheels will not get the TC to activate, imagine your on a wet road and you "spin off" at the traffic lights, not quite as much revs required, but it gives you an idea.It doestakes a while to get used to the TC system and how to use it to the best of your and its ability, but the key is RPM, if you start to loose traction, hold the revsand let the TC work its magic.

 

were you in 4hi or 4lo? some reason my rover seems to get much better traction in 4lo..not sure why..the traction control should work the same hi or lo.

 

But when your "offroad", you should always be in low box, thats what its there for.....

 

It's the multiplied torque from the lower gear ratio in the t-case that makes low range so useful.

 

My rear wheels were spinning a lot but no movement from the fronts. I was in low gear. Interestingly the TC light was not coming on when I was stuck but it was lighting up when I was on trails today.
I'm wondering if the ABS sensors weren't working in the muddy water, not sure why this would be, are they optical?
Thanks

 

I think it's magnetic just for that reason.

 

ABS sensors are magnetic, that is why wxcessive brake dust can mess them up.

 

Are your 3 Amigos on, if so you will not have function of the ETC.
By the way, you mentioned you don't have CDL, most 01's do, have you actually gotten under the truck to check?
For the best results from ETC, always keep a constant throttle pressure so you don't confuse the ECU.