Help!! Bunch of Electrical Gremlins

[just_dirty]

Background story :

I had the negative cable on the battery disconnected so I could swap the under seat wiring from my old seats onto my new Seats (The Airbag light was on and also the Ventilated and heated seats weren't working). So I go to button the truck back together, the heated and ventilated seats work and im super stoked. Well now i have an "unknown Driver" displaying on the DIC and also the truck will start and run for about 2 seconds before it shuts off. Also my keyfob and the a bunch of electronics inside were not working (Door locks, windows radio etc).

So I played with the truck some more and I unplugged the drivers seat Wiring harness in the rear to see if I could see anything visibly wrong with the plug or wires. All of a sudden everything started working and the truck came back to life. It even started and ran like normal. When I go to plug in the drivers seat wiring harness the truck will throw and ABS Error, Stabilitrak error, and also display Unknown error.

I was wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction on what wires to look for? Or if you can produce a wiring diagram for the drivers seat on an Escalade ESV Platinum 2004

 

[Yukon John]

Harry, I had something similar happen to my 2004 ESV. My problem was that the seat positioning went hay wire and would move the seat back when the switch was pushed forward and vise versa. I disconnected the battery, took the seat out, made the repairs...but got side tracked for a few days before I finished the job.

I finally found a very good independent dealer/service center that had all of the required software to "Re-Flash" the system to it's original configuration.

The way it was explained to me was that the main computers from vehicles of that era came with a CMOS battery similar to what we have in PC's to maintain the BIOS settings. As the battery ages it doesn't have enough life in it to maintain the data memory of the ECM's on these new rigs. Many shade tree mechanics hook a low amperage 12 VDC source through a power port to maintain that CMOS battery to avoid loosing the programming.

I have been messing with cars and boats for over 50 years and must admit that although "Old School" methods solve a lot of problems, a working knowledge of which sensors can and do go bad along with switches and servos is a must have.

I think you need to have the computer re flashed....I did.

Good luck and let us know ** it turns out.

John

 

[just_dirty]

What repairs did you make exactly? I have two seat modules, one which does what you describe and another which operates normally. They both make the truck go in crazy freak out mode.

Could this possible be an issue with the large ground(Black) or power wire (Orange) that is shorting out?

 

[just_dirty]

Bump. Anybody else have any suggestions?

 

[DansOtter]

Sounds to me like you may have a couple of issues; one being the seat memory module. There's a thread around here somewhere that talks about those specifically, but the gist was that there's a programming anomaly in the factory module that (eventually) causes the motion to reverse; i.e. forward is backward, up is down, etc... I think there's even a GM service bulletin about it. The only fix is to take it to a dealer and have the box reprogrammed. Not sure what the cost would be though. Mine occasionally does it too, but the annoyance of it hasn't been bad enough to shell out the money to the dealer for the fix.

I'm not sure that all of your symptoms are related to that. Have you checked fuses to see if anything has blown? There may be a wire short somewhere. Unplugging the harness means the circuit would not be completed, and in doing so, it's not reading the codes that the other sensors are throwing.

I'm currently dealing with that in my 05 Tahoe. Driver and passenger electric seats AND passenger side windows are all on the same circuit on a 50A fuse under the hood. On mine, the fuse blows sporadically, and I occasionally get a ground loop hum through the rear passenger door speaker. I've been searching for a shorted cable and signs of arcing with no luck yet, but I've only looked at about a 1/4 of the wires. There's like, 75 or so and they're about a mile long and all wrapped in electrical tape THANKS GM.



Anyway... here's a blog of a guy that has some good posts. Browse around here a bit and you may get some clues as to where to start looking:

http://www.sparkys-answers.com/2015/09/2008-gmc-sierra-denali-multiple-electrical-problems.html

Hope this helps, and good luck.

Dan

 

[DansOtter]

Here's the thread I was talking about, including service bulletin:

http://www.tahoeyukonforum.com/threads/drivers-front-seat-help.3231/

A guy on the thread had his done. Said they charged him an hour of labor and fixed it for $115.