The traction control comes on even on the driest of days and it stops me in the middle of intersections. The abs light comes with it after you breach 50 mph.
Anyone have any info on this?

 

You have a bad wheel speed sensor or wiring. This may be a bad wheel bearing which often times first shows up as a bad speed sensor.
There will be stored codes in the computer to help diagnose this. Get the codes read or take your car to where you have brakes and alignment done.

 

Could the wheel speed sensors just need cleaned? Or should I go ahead and replace them?
What about tone rings? Would they have anything to do with it.

 

When problems like you describe occur there is usually a failure. The roads are pretty crappy this time of year, but if you can find smooth asphalt somewhere. You might be able to identify a wheel bearing starting to fail by noise. Does the car make a low growl noise on slight turns? More in one direction and quiet in the other.

 

The front speed sensors are external and use a tone ring on the axle. The rear speed sensors are part of the wheel bearing/hub assembly. I suspect your problem is in the front due to the traction control acting up before the abs system notices.

 

No, no noises. No growls, squeaks, ticks, knocks, nothing. Its great running car and the only thing you hear is the engine. But one day, my abs light popped on and traction control was like "you're sliding, let me stop you" when I didn't need to be stopped.
I think I'll buy some wheel speed sensors and see what that does for me. Thank you for your insight.

 

(loads shotgun)

 

I put different tires on the back and my traction control doesn't come on anymore nor my ABS.
The tires I had on it were just a wee bit too big but I only used them as temporary tires until I could afford the correct size. I had them on for maybe a month or so, give or take a week. I didn't realize that those tires would cause problems.

I appreciate everyone's time and knowledge. Thank you all.

 

Wow! I would have never guessed that in a million years! I don't get how the tire size could interfere with the ABS at all. But, I'm not a mechanic and pretty much a dumbass. Derf can verify that, if you don't believe me. Thanks for letting us know what it was. Maybe it'll help someone avoid that problem in the future.

 

I'm thinking the real wheel sensors picked up on the fact that the two rear wheels were rotating at different rates than the fronts since the tire sizes were different enough. The BCM interpreted this as the car having lost rear traction, triggering the traction control.

The only way I can see ABS activating itself without you touching the brake is through some fail safe algorithm that looks at the vehicle speed, looks at the different wheel speeds, and apparently if you are going over 50mph AND the rear and front wheel speeds are far enough apart, the vehicle assumes you are losing traction at a very high speed and triggers the ABS as a fail safe to slow down the vehicle.

This hit me 15 min ago