Offroad-Express

I drive an Isuzu Bighorn Lotus 1997, diesel 3.1, mileage less than 150.000km. It recently developed a problem which manifests in red CHECK light coming up under the TOD symbol on the dashboard as well as orange ABS light. ABS flashes sometimes while I'm accelerating - definitely shouldn't - while CHECK under TOD (wheels symbols flashing too) comes up randomely, doesn't seem to depend on anything at all. Both faults are intermittent, sometimes flash, sometimes not. The truck drives well, everything seems to be working as it should, but those lights. My mechanic (a very good one) checked everything and says that mechanically the truck is perfectly good, so it must be just the electronics. I reside in Christchurch, New Zealand. The local auto sevice station specialising in Isuzu refused to even inspect my truck, they say they have a policy of not servicing such models at all. It appears that nobody around here has neither the means nor the expertise to check those electronics. I'm wondering if A) somebody might have a servicing manual for my model, covering electronic faults in particular and B) if anybody experienced a similar situation and found a solution they could share? Your help would be greatly appreciated.

If both lights do it together I would guess the fault is ABS related as the TOD uses the abs wheel sensors to detect wheel spin or slip. It it a TOD fault you wont get an ABS error.
Have a really good look at your wheel speed sensors, pull them out and make sure they are clean on the ends and the wiring is not damaged.
The biggest problem for us at work with these Bighorns is the lack of scan tools that will work on them. We normally have to use the local holden dealership tool.
Maybe even run it into blackwells an get then to scan it preferably when the lights have been on, although it might cost $70-80 it could save a lot of guessing and time.

We do have a service manual for these at work on computer but it is about 70mb, 1500 pages, and the last one I had a TOD fault on was different to the manual so it didn't help

[quote=...the last one I had a TOD fault on was different to the manual so it didn't help[/quote]

- But have you found a way to fix it?

Probably a long shot but check your brake fluid level. My work car is a new suzuki vitara and it came up with a fault saying check stability control system and it was low on brake fluid. (Garage hadn't topped it up enough)

Michael61 wrote:[quote=...the last one I had a TOD fault on was different to the manual so it didn't help

- But have you found a way to fix it?[/quote]

Yes depending on what is wrong and how much money you have.
It is a very complex system and can be a real prick to diagnose.

Try a search and posting on the Club Isuzu website http://clubisuzu.com

Old post but need to correct misinformation. The TOD speed sensors are on the transfer case, and not related to the ABS speed sensors. The pick up the speed of the front and rear output shafts.

Shorting Pin 8 of the ODBII connector to ground (Pin 4) causes the fault codes to be displayed. No need for Tech2 tool from Holden dealer. From these codes and a series series of flow charts in the factory manual its relatively simple to diagnose. I have just been though it myself, and can be done with a cheap multimeter, reading the manual and a bit of patience. Look for 99UBS4B2.PDF - 4B2 is the TOD - or the 4B2 section in the otehr manuals you will find on the net.