Brake Sensor problems of the 2004 Acura TL

The contact owns a 2004 Acura Tl. While driving 30 mph, the front passenger side anti lock braking system engaged independently. The vehicle was taken to the dealer where it was diagnosed that the yaw sensor needed to be replaced. The vehicle was not repaired. The contact stated that the failure was intermittent. The manufacturer was notified of the failure. The approximate failure mileage was 108,000.

I was driving at about 45-50 mph when the brakes suddenly came on very hard without me touching the brake peddle and the car slowed very rapidly (in a straight line) almost to a stop. The brakes were then released as suddenly as they had been applied before the car came to a complete stop. The pulses from the antilock braking system (abs) during the braking period indicated the brakes were being applied rather than a problem with the automatic transmission. I pulled off the road to check that the transmission was still functional and that no unusual fault lights were being displayed on the dash. Since everything appeared normal I resumed my journey only to have the same spontaneous braking phenomenon occur five or six times over the next 2-3 miles. Fortunately I was close to an Acura dealer so I drove the car at 40 mph with emergency flashers on to the Acura dealer (about 3 miles away). Driving the car at 40 mph did not prompt a recurrence of these spontaneous braking episodes over this distance. The Acura dealer diagnosed a faulty accelerator position sensor and replaced the sensor assembly. There has been no recurrence of these spontaneous braking episodes over the 39 miles I have driven the car since the accelerator position sensor was replaced. I consider this spontaneous braking problem with my 2004 Acura Tl as extremely serious. Had a bus, truck, large SUV or pick up truck been following closely behind me when these braking episodes occurred I think it quite likely a serious and fatal accident could have happened.

The vsa (stability control) system on my 2004 Acura Tl malfunctioned. The system would cause the right front brake to activate by itself, causing the car to severly swerve to the right. After a half-second or so, the vsa would disengage and the fault indicator would lite up on the dashboard. The Acura dealer was unable to diagnose the problem because vsa fault codes are not stored in the vehicle's memory after the car is restarted and the system automatically resets. This resulted in having to continue to drive the car until the fault re-occured. Eventually, when it happened again, I was able to take the car directly to dealer and they were able to diagnose the car (because we left it running so as not to clear the code). The problem was traced to a yaw rate sensor in the vsa system. Acura should make this information available to dealers. This poses a serious safety problem at highway speeds and there is nothing a driver can do to predict or prevent when this problem will occur. Since my sensor was replaced, the problem has not happened again.