DSC warning light

[wombat66]

Today when I turned left at an intersection fairly quickly the DSC light came on and stayed on for about 20 seconds. Is this normal? The book says it will flash when the DSC functions, but this was on steady for quite a while. It eventually went off. I didn't really think it was a situation where it would function anyway. The car was never close to being unstable. Any ideas? Thanks.

Edit: My Fiesta doesn't have any way of turning off DSC, however the one I test drove did. Seems strange.

[Spinner77]

Plenty of tread on your tyres, I assume.

[wombat66]

It's a new car. It's only done 400kms.

[Fiesta God]

Was the road wet or did you accelerate quickly? I know it sounds stupid but there might even have been something on the road e.g. some gravel?

I haven't heard of it activating unless under fairly unstable conditions (high speed cornering) ... has it happened before?

[wombat66]

I did take the corner pretty quickly (to get the car up to 80km/h fast) and there might have been some gravel on the road as it's a country highway. The road was dry though. I thought the light was meant to flash. But this actually stayed on for about 20 seconds. It didn't do it again for the rest of the trip home.

Edit: it hasn't happened before.

[GoesLikeAZetec]

ive had it come on a couple of times in the wet... usually it blinks 4 or 5 times and then goes off... never seen it stay on though

[Fiesta_Man69]

Try to set it off tomorrow, see if it stays on for 20 secs again or just flashes. All else fails call up your dealership, they should know. Hopefully...

[wombat66]

I threw the car around a few corners today and the light didn't come on at all. I guess I'll just keep driving it and wait for it to happen again. I'll ask the dealer about it when it goes in for it's 3000km check.

[greenfoam]

It often comes on for quite a while when driving down a highway in the rain with ruts the trucks have made full of water. As soon as one of the wheels is spinning faster than another the light comes on, it's a pretty sensitive thing since it comes on along the highway while the car is still going perfectly straight.. Just that one wheel is floating a bit. Comes on very easily on gravel roads too

[wombat66]

Sounds like it's very sensitive. Maybe I don't have a problem then. I'll just keep driving it and see what happens.

[hhaannkkyy]

As far as I am aware if the light comes on steady without flashing for a extended period of time it means that the system had a malfunction and has turned off. It usually only takes 10-30 seconds before it works it out and turns back on. This happened to mine when we were driving back from Sydney to Brisbane on the motorway in the wet - the road had a lot of small pot holes which water would pool in for about 400 meters and the system must of got confused and switched it self off for a bit. I could feel power being cut and it working before the light stayed on constant and not after.

[wombat66]

If it did malfunction will a code show up when it goes in for it's 3000km check?

[hhaannkkyy]

I would assume so, I'm pretty sure all of the system error codes are logged. But its only useful if the service department actually look at it.