I thought I would post this just in case it would help someone else out. I see others have had similar issues with a variety of causes.
Several months ago, I pulled away from a stop sign and my truck just took a nosedive like I had lost all power. I could feather the throttle and eventually get up to speed like nothing happened. It was an intermittent problem and there weren't any error codes. I think I may have seen a "Traction Active" warning for a split second not sure since I was not looking at the display.
Somewhere along the line I read about how the Denali AWD was controlled through braking, so I paid more attention and realized I was not losing power, my brakes were coming on. I then eventually tried turning off the traction control and all was well. I intended to look more into it "when I had more time". Months later, as winter was approaching, just after replacing pads and rotors, I noticed my anti-lock brakes coming on as I came to a stop at slow speeds. Turning the traction control had no effect. Just what I needed with snow on the way. Snow and freezing weather are a great motivator. I was trying to figure out if I had screwed something up doing the brakes, so I did some research and found others with the slow speed anti-lock brake issue. It had been the result of rust build up under the wheel speed sensor.
So, since the truck had a very light pull to the right when this happened, I pulled the left sensor, knocked the rust flakes off of the hub, carefully filed the area on the hub, de-rusted it, painted it, and reassembled it. The sensor was a little distorted from the rust pushing up and did not sit perfectly flush. But it was late, I was cold, nobody had the correct new sensor in stock, and I left it that way. I figured it wouldn't be worse.
Went for a test drive expecting the issue to, at best, only be a little better. Instead, everything works great now and is back to normal. I don't have to shut off the traction control and the anti-lock brakes work fine now. Basically, it cost me only the time it took. Funny how getting it just back to normal feels so satisfying.
Several months ago, I pulled away from a stop sign and my truck just took a nosedive like I had lost all power. I could feather the throttle and eventually get up to speed like nothing happened. It was an intermittent problem and there weren't any error codes. I think I may have seen a "Traction Active" warning for a split second not sure since I was not looking at the display.
Somewhere along the line I read about how the Denali AWD was controlled through braking, so I paid more attention and realized I was not losing power, my brakes were coming on. I then eventually tried turning off the traction control and all was well. I intended to look more into it "when I had more time". Months later, as winter was approaching, just after replacing pads and rotors, I noticed my anti-lock brakes coming on as I came to a stop at slow speeds. Turning the traction control had no effect. Just what I needed with snow on the way. Snow and freezing weather are a great motivator. I was trying to figure out if I had screwed something up doing the brakes, so I did some research and found others with the slow speed anti-lock brake issue. It had been the result of rust build up under the wheel speed sensor.
So, since the truck had a very light pull to the right when this happened, I pulled the left sensor, knocked the rust flakes off of the hub, carefully filed the area on the hub, de-rusted it, painted it, and reassembled it. The sensor was a little distorted from the rust pushing up and did not sit perfectly flush. But it was late, I was cold, nobody had the correct new sensor in stock, and I left it that way. I figured it wouldn't be worse.
Went for a test drive expecting the issue to, at best, only be a little better. Instead, everything works great now and is back to normal. I don't have to shut off the traction control and the anti-lock brakes work fine now. Basically, it cost me only the time it took. Funny how getting it just back to normal feels so satisfying.
