Intermittent KDSS light C1851 & C1852 (3 Viewers)

[bignoob221]

Hello! first post here and new to 120 platform and off roading in general.

I bought a GX470 with an intermittent KDSS light. Itll usually turn on after driving for a few minutes and then stay on. But will sometimes turn off randomly. But if I power cycle the car. The light will turn off and KDSS will work as intended. As far as I can tell with my testing (jumping curbs, highway speed turns, and working KDSS in general). Its basically random. To reiterate. It will sometimes turn on after driving for a few minutes, sometimes turn off randomly by itself, and will reset if I power cycle the car. I cant find a method to consistently turn it on or how to turn it off.

I managed to take it to an independent shop and got them to pull the codes for me. C1851 Low pressure in upside, and C1852 Low pressure in downside. While at the shop. The techs mentioned that it might just need a recharge/bleed? I didnt notice any oil leaks from the accumulator, solenoid, and cylinders. But I havent gotten a chance to crawl under it and thoroughly inspect it yet due to my HOA having a strict "no working on cars rule".

From some research, I know its a common problem for the connector and solenoid valves to corrode. But when I pull the steel plate off. It basically looks brand new. It lived its entire life in San Diego. So I doubt that corrosion would be a problem. Unfortunately I dont have a torques bit set. So I cant take off the cover to inspect the solenoids yet.

So here I am making this post. I am clearly in over my head and it doesnt seem like anyone else has had this specific combination of codes before. So please, if anyone with more experience working on the KDSS system I would love to hear some pointers. Especially before I break down and bring it to a dealer to start throwing money at it.

 

[OG Zuninja]

Tell us more about your rig. Is it stock? I gotta wonder if the shutter valves were left open ever so slightly. I could be way off the mark though.

 

[bignoob221]

Tell us more about your rig. Is it stock? I gotta wonder if the shutter valves were left open ever so slightly. I could be way off the mark though.

244k miles, completely stock, one owner. It looks like the original owner was good on keeping up on maintenance initially. It was mostly all dealer maintained until the later years.

I'll look into the shutter valves. But the underside looks pretty much untouched.

 

[OG Zuninja]

244k miles, completely stock, one owner. It looks like the original owner was good on keeping up on maintenance initially. It was mostly all dealer maintained until the later years.

I'll look into the shutter valves. But the underside looks pretty much untouched.

Similar to mine except I'm the third owner. It wasn't until I dug into it some that I noticed some discrepancies that were not done by the dealer and I can only assume it was the previous owner.

 

[CarGuyCarl]

Late to the show. Every figured this one out?

My intermittent KDSS was light was due to corrosion in the connector. Seems like yours is fine, but my codes were different too. Seems like you may have low pressure in the system but it's odd there are no visible leaks.

 

[bignoob221]

Late to the show. Every figured this one out?

My intermittent KDSS was light was due to corrosion in the connector. Seems like yours is fine, but my codes were different too. Seems like you may have low pressure in the system but it's odd there are no visible leaks.

Sorry for not up updating this post. But yes, I did figure it out and got it fixed.

Turns out it was the rear cylinder leaking. I really kick myself in the butt for not noticing it when I was inspecting it. But I didn't get much of a good chance to look under it when buying (I later found the driver side air bag to be leaking too. So the kdss side was extra saggy). Also it looks pretty recent because the oil isn't too covered in dust and honestly. I probably only noticed it because I had taken it a few times off road. So all the dust was probably from me.

Honestly, now that that I think about it. The original owner donated it to a charity auction. They probably donated it because of the intermittent KDSS light and leaking airbag. Probably just didn't want to deal with fixing it.

After looking up how to bleed the kdss system. I ultimately decided against diy'ing it because of my new HOA's rule against working on cars (and I already was pushing it by trying to fix/service the cooling system). I tried finding an independent shop that would touch the kdss system and unsurprisingly, no one would touch it. So dealer it was. Got charged about $2100 for it. About $1000 for the cylinder, about $1000 for labor, and $70 for the kdss fluid.

After the repair. It driver great, no issues. If the cost was close to or above $3000. I probably would have just ripped out the kdss system. But I'm happy that I didn't.