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Disabling Stabilitrak


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I'm going to agree with Alberta & Michigan... Learning how to drive on steep hills, highways, and lakes in Northern Minnesota in winter teaches you how to handle a vehicle in crap conditions. Between here and 9 years of driving glare ice highways in North Dakota, I'm far more comfortable driving in the winter without traction control/stabilitrack.

 

Best incident I can say that NOT having it saved me... I was going to Fort Worth from NoDak, left in the morning during a mild blizzard with a Uhaul loaded down behind my '02 Avalanche, make it through Sioux Falls as the last vehicle they let on the interstate towards Sioux City... Was following a semi by 40-50 yards and could only see him on occasion...we got to Sioux City, he kept going so I did the same. Worst driving weather I'd ever driven in, but the Avalanche with 285 BFG AT's held up to it no problem...until about 20 miles south of Sioux City where an overpass had caused a large drift to form throwing the semi partially into the ditch, as soon as I hit his ruts I went the same way but farther in...

 

He really only skirted the side of the highway, but I kept moving through and skipped out of his ruts so I was pushing through a couple feet of snow with a Uhaul, but momentum and being able to stay on the throttle with 100% control of the machine, I managed to work out of the ditch pretty easy. No doubt in my mind with stabilitrack I would have been sitting stuck down in the ditch and it would have been a long wait...

 

Only time I've ever ditched a truck - well, on accident, the other time was on purpose :driving:

 

I will own another '02 or '03 Avalanche at some point...such a great truck. Especially with some bigger tires & the front end bumped up with torsion keys a couple inches.

 

Otherwise, I can definitely say that when you're out ice fishing and are running around off the ice-road you're far more likely to get stuck with the stabilitrack than without -

 

Also, I tried turning it off yesterday in an empty parking lot with a lot of slippery stuff, I managed to kick the back end out about 2 feet before it kicked back on...annoying.

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Bit of an update...

 

So our two day snow totals here are in the 30" range.

 

Our neighborhood is one of the last to get city plowing and I have to go one block in, take a right, head uphill (10-15 degree incline) a block and then turn into my 60 foot uphill (20 degree at least) driveway....best guess is that there was 15" in the roadway with some bigger drifts.

 

I had no problem the first block and making the turn in Auto, switched to 4 high on the second block and had no problems, turned into the driveway and knew I was pushing a ton of heavy snow with the airdam and bumper...I backed out to line up, dropped it into 4 low and manual first...got going pretty good and got bogged down about halfway up, which I was plenty happy with - just wanted to keep my rear out of the way of the plow - would have needed a lift with more clearance to get farther in.

 

The interesting part is that when you go into 4 low the Traction Control and Stabilitrac automatically shut off...granted its not like being able to cut those in 2wd and taking control, but its something.

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My first bad experiance with traction control was when I got stuck in a flat parking lot with my snowmobile trailer on in my 2011 duramax.Now I have learned and in snow or slippery conditions I disable it.

 

 

Exactly, the problem is on the 2014's the stabilitrak kicks back on at 56km per hour. Unless you are in 4x4 low but I never use low.

I have looked, there is no fuse to pull. I am wondering if a person wired the toggle switch down if that would work?? Kind of a stupid way to bypass it but maybe it will work?

I wish I would have just fixed the motor in my 2010 now :(

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The stabilitrak is controlled by the BCM module, no way to put a switch in to turn it off. You would have to kill the BCM module which would not allow the truck to run.

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I don't think there is a separate fuse for ABS but worth a try if there is. When I said tie down the toggle switch, I meant the one on the dash that turns this crap off temporarily, not add a new switch. The last generation was a flat push in button but the new ones stck out like a toggle switch I noticed.

Perhaps holding it down permanently will work. A little dirtbike safety wire would do nicely :)

But I am guessing that won't work.

If I haven't found a better solution by the time it comes in, I will try it to see if it works.

Edited by Dirtbiker
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  • 1 month later...

Just an update. I finally got my new truck but I have not been able to find a work around. Tried holding the switch down but it didn't work. Talked to a tuner but he said he can't do it.

Might try pulling an abs fuse but I am scared it will go into limp mode or disable something else like the cruise control too. Anyone else had any luck with this?

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once again you all are making an issue where one does not lie. If it was that big of a issue and you knew that going into the purchase you should have test drove the Ford and Dodge trucks then and went with one of them.

 

GM is making a safer truck for a reason, they just received the first 5 star crash rating on a 1/2 ton truck. Part of that is also adding in technology that helps drivers maintain control of the vehicle. The way they see it is people more times than not wont be out drifting a 2.5 ton truck. Performance cars are another story which is why the Vette and Camaro can have the stabilitrak disabled.

 

Drive it like a truck and not a sports car.

 

we've had several snow storms, I have yet to be in a situation where I needed to be sideways over 35mph.

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One of the first things I tried out was testing the traction control on the 14s.They are better It will go pretty good now even on, spinning a little, light flashing. Just a few years ago if you hit gravel or sand and had it on it would shut down. Put me in harms way more than once. The first thing I did after start up was hit the button and turned it down, they don't go all the way off.

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Just an update. I finally got my new truck but I have not been able to find a work around. Tried holding the switch down but it didn't work. Talked to a tuner but he said he can't do it.

Might try pulling an abs fuse but I am scared it will go into limp mode or disable something else like the cruise control too. Anyone else had any luck with this?

Pulling an abs fuse should shut the junk off. Sure you are in alarm all the time but really who cares. I doubt you will get limp mode from it either. It just will trip all the lights on as it would if you broke a harness on a hub bearing. I need to do it to one of the 14s at work and see.

 

 

Sent from the Great White North

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