I recently acquired 2016 Impala Limited with 120K miles. The stability light traction control will go off regularly when the car is cold start in morning (40 degrees I live in NC) ONLY when I accelerate. The light will toggle on and off in rapid succession for 5-10 seconds and i can recreate it by accelerating while moving at 40 MPH. After 10 min of driving the light will not come back on no matter how hard I try to recreate it.

I have no service records so do not know if the front hub bearings have been replaced( which appears to be common recommendation for issues like this). The front end is solid very responsive with no wheel vibrations or no hum/grinding that would make me believe it is the hub bearings. There is some cupping on all 4 of the tires that sometimes sounds like I have a stone stuck in tire treads, but quickly dissipates. I figured that the cupping was because the tires never been rotated (50 percent of tread is left).

I am looking for advice of where to start. to me sounds like a loose connection or wire somewhere or possibly a sensor?

Again, ANY help from the pros on this forum to help me track this down. There are no codes that are thrown.

I know that shops have diagnostic scan tools that would help pinpoint stuff like this. If anybody has a recommendation on a good Diag Scan Tool that is not that expensive. I think I will be needing it in the future.

Thanks for your time and advice in advance.
Mike

 

toe worn tires are from alignment problems. if the alignment is good you won't get irregular wear regardless of tire rotation.

Who checked for codes?
the codes for the chassis system won't show up with a cheap code reader. you need a tool that can access chassis code "C" codes.

 

Yea sort of figured with the tires alignment was issue I got the tires balanced and they told me it was because they were not rotated. It never happened like that on my older cars i worked on... so I thought something with the newer cars handling/suspension might had something to do with tire cupping.

I have a $35 code reader... there are no codes. I can not afford a $700+ one that is bidirectional and does chassi codes. If anyone is aware of a good reader that does it all cheaply let me know. Obviously that is easy way to figure out the Stability track problem. I was looking for common problems the pros on this forum ran into with this issue. If I take it to a dealership the teck knows what the problem is before he pulls it in the garage. He just verifies it with the reader....

 

you are confusing a scan tool with a crystal ball

 

Tech2 - YOUR A FUNNY GUY! In my experience in working on my own cars over 30+ years is that vehicle models have same common problems by bad design or faulty parts that are known issues for specific models .
For instance, the ABS wheel sensor harness hangs and forms a loop/pocket before it attaches to the wheel hub on this Impala . Water accumulates in this loop/pocket of the wire harness and rapidly deteriorates the connections and wires over time from freezing expansion. Or ABS wire pin connections are a known issue on Dodge Chargers because of bad design and poor quality connections on 2008-20010 models. causing ABS issues on those cars .
There are probably 1000's of such things the techs know from working on these cars daily at the Stealership. Good Techs do not need a scan tool majority of time they know where to look first for common problems and verify their finding with tools. So, there are no tea leaf readings, praying to the gods', hocus pocus or even your crystal ball idea, the tecks already know.
Tech2 with over 7K+ posts you given in this forum, i am a bit disappointed in your remarks when asking for help. You may have no clue what is going on with 2016 Chevy Impalas but, other Techs on this forum that work on Impalas regularly definitely will, without a $700 "chassis code "C" codes scan tool".

 

there are pattern failures but no tech in the world knows where to begin without starting with scan data. a stability fault can be caused by a bad wss ...but which one. it can also be cause by any powertrain fault that interacts with the traction control and stability control system...ie. drive by wire throttle control, engine misfire will disable the stability and traction control. off center steering will cause a disable as the steering angle sensor senses a turned steering wheel but all 4 wss turning at the same rate. If you can go right to the fault without a scan tool...you are a wizard.

I am a FCA (ie dodge) level 3 tech...I appreciate the charger tips!

if your are disappointed with my comments...I will let the other techs come in and tell you exactly where the fault lies.