ESP and service/check engine light

[ITautoguy]

Hey everyone. Reaching out here to see if someone could possibly help save me some time in troubleshooting my wife's Grand Vitara. About the Vehicle:

2007 Grand Vitara Luxury (V6), auto transmission, 2WD, sitting at a little over 100k miles.

The wife and I noticed that while driving at low speeds (i.e. less than 40 or so MPH), that the car would spend more time in lower gears than normal. "No biggie" I thought to myself, its about that time where it needs the tranny fluid swapped out, so I'll just make a mental note to do that soon. Well, then yesterday happened

I got a call from the misses stating that while she was driving on the interstate, the tach was sitting at around 4k, and she was driving somewhere around 50Mph. She also stated that the ESP light was on. After a minute or two of talking, the car finally shifted into the last gear, and of course, the rpms dropped. Later on that day, the service/check engine light came on as well. So I plugged my OBDII scanner in and read the code, P0707:

Trouble Code: P0707


A/T Transmission Range Sensor Circuit Low Input

Possible Causes:


A/T select cable is improperly adjusted or it is damaged

A/T transmission range switch is maladjusted or damaged

A/T transmission range switch signal circuit is open or shorted

TCM has failed

So I cleared it (it had been logged twice, so I had little faith that it would stay gone), and within a few minutes of driving the light came back on. Another thing that may be worth noting is that the ESP light didn't come back on immediately after restarting the car, its as if it take a minute or two, or a bit of driving for it to come back on.

So, given the time of year, and the weather (don't have a convenient workshop, well... not yet) I called the stealership who reported to me that they would need to "put it on their machine with their software" in order to pinpoint what is wrong. The dealership stated that to look at the car it would cost $50, and that would go toward the cost to repair the car.

Anyways, if someone could point me in the right direction to fix this thing myself, that is certainly what I would prefer to do. I'm not one to simply replace parts on a car unless I can test whether or not its actually bad. It seems to me that the problem could possibly be the transmission speed sensor or transmission range sensor. But I don't know of a way to validate what be be at fault here. What could cause the P0707 and the ESP lights at the same time?

[DBO]

You'll have to run through the steps as outlined in the service guidelines. Not sure whether you've got all those, so I've made an extract for you (send me a PM and I'll email it to you). Hope that helps.

[basspaul]

Originally Posted by ITautoguy

What could cause the P0707 and the ESP lights at the same time?

The ESP light will come on if any of the many, many variables it monitors or controls has a fault. My guess is the TCM is throwing a fault and the ESP is turning itself off for your safety...

[SDC]

I have serviced several GV where the A/C drains directly over the range sensor in the transmission and corroded the connector or the sensor itself. Crawl under the vehicle on the right side and look for it.

[ITautoguy]

Apologies for chiming back in so late, but I wanted to follow up to let everyone know what transpired. I had a strong suspicion that it was the transmission range sensor, but I wasn't about to replace a $250 part until I knew for sure. So, I took it to a trustworthy dealership, and paid them the $100 to confirm that the sensor was bad. They wanted another $100 to put the sensor on, but I promptly informed them that I was capable of doing that myself.

One thing of note, and this is what made me have doubts, was that the light in the instrument cluster that tells you what gear you're in, would intermittently turn on and off. This made me think that there was a possibility of a short somewhere, but I couldn't find one. Since the GV has a PCM as well as a TCM (not sure how many other cars out there utilize a TCM), the TRS sends information to the TCM about the transmission (what gear its in & I imagine other things as well), and when this signal doesn't make it to the TCM for x amount of time, the light in the dash will go out (until the signal comes back), and eventually, a DTC code will be thrown, in my case P0707.

basspaul was right about the ESP light, as it went away after replacing the TRS. One more word of advice, if you disconnect the battery long enough all of the electronically learned variables and whatnot, expect to let your GV sit for a while as it would cut off when I put it in drive or reverse while keeping my foot on the brake. Either that or its time for me to check the ICV and perhaps clean it. Once the GV ran for a number of minutes, it re-learned whatever it needed to re-learn to calibrate everything for the fuel management system and all is well now.

Regardless, I've replaced the TRS and all is well now. MANY thanks to DBO for the information.

[harky]

hi all
new to the forum
a friend as the same problem in this thread
can someone explain the acronym s TRS? and the others used
thanks
harky

[ITautoguy]

TRS = Transmission Range Sensor

[harky]

thanks , that was on the thread when I re read it
another question , how long do I leave the battery DISCONNECTED to get the ecu to "re see / re think " the running programme ???
thanks
harky