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261K views 169 replies 89 participants last post by  Submariner409 
#1 ·
Need some expert advice here. Purchased a '94 DeVille (with the SSS system) from the son of the original owner (38k miles). "SERVICE RIDE CONTROL" message is on the dash. Took car to the local Cadillac dealer and was told it would be one hour labor to diagnose; figured it was one of the struts and at least one pair of struts would need replacing. After one hour, I was told that none of the struts was receiving a signal and they would need more shop time (1 or 2 more hours) to examine the wiring to determine the cause, as there seemed to be a dead short. They said they would start at the fuses and relays and work from there. I went ahead and approved the additional time. After two more hours, I was told that the wiring was fine and now they were looking at two control modules and the wiring between them (I'll get to another point later, but I am after-the-fact guessing they were referring to the SSS module and the PCM). After another 1.5 hours I was told the car needed a new "Body Control Module", which they would have to order. I asked what the bill was so far and was presented with 4.5 hours that was $20 per hour HIGHER than the shop rate I had been quoted when I made the service appointment two weeks earlier. Oops, someone must have given me an incorrect rate...I told them to close out my bill and give me a detailed estimate on their recommended repairs with a list of needed parts, part numbers and prices. Kind of felt like I was financing the education on the Cadillac SSS for his service technician and I still did not have a great deal of confidence in his diagnosis. I was told by the guy in the parts department a price for the "needed parts", but "I didn't need the part numbers because they knew which ones to order and would get them when I made another appointment to have the rest of the work done".

Long story short, I referred back to the factory shop manual and could find no "Body Control Module" for a '94 DeVille with SSS. Called back the service writer at my local Cadillac dealer and, after consultation with the service tech, now decided it was the PCM that my car needed. OK, now that's at least a part this car has!

Fast forward to yesterday. Had a reason to call the owner's son and he said the car was taken to their dealer for diagnosis of the same thing before I bought it. He said his dealer had told him whatever was defective was no longer available from GM and the cure was this bypass harness that GM sells. Called that dealer this morning, but no notation was made on the work order except "Check and Advise", but no mention was made as to what the advisement was. This was only about six weeks ago, so I asked to have the tech or writer who handled the car to give me a call back; I'm hoping maybe they remember what they found out when they inspected the car in late October.

Does any of this sound plausible? HELP!!!!!

sdhow
sdhoward@parker.com
 
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#158 ·
Use the sticky thread at the top of the main Seville/Eldorado Forum titled "How to pull codes" from your car's built-in code reader/scanner system. When you get the codes, if any, write them down, noting whether each is Current or History (C or H); return to the sticky and use the proper link for your year group to open pages with code definitions. You'll be looking for B codes which refer to the ELC (Electronic Level Control) or ALC (Automatic Level Control).

Chances are that the compressor or a component of the compressor system is faulty, the air lines to the shocks have failed, or the shock boots have failed.

Your car does not have air suspension. It uses springs and electric front struts; springs and electric rear shocks in the RSS (Road Sensing Suspension) system. The rear level control compensates for loads in the back seat or trunk.
 
#160 · (Edited)
Hello everyone - I hope there are still users here. I too have the Service Ride message on my 94 Sedan Deville dash. Looking in the trunk, at some point in time, a previous owner added the relay to bypass the dash error, but for whatever reason, the wires were reconnected as factory.

I have been searching for the past week for a simple how to troubleshoot the front struts. Right now, they do not do anything. When driving, it feels as if there are no struts on the front end at all, and when i get to 43 mph, the front end starts shaking a lot. it does smooth back out at 54 mph.

I bought this car as a personal challenge - just to have something to do. But, I am totally lost when it comes to the SSS.

If anyone could tell me the exact locations of all of the fuses, relays, and sensors for the front struts, I would be forever indebted to you.

So far, I have checked all of my fuses under the hood and in the trunk and they are all great - will probably just buy all new ones anyways just to be on the safe side.

On the drivers side - behind the rear seat - there are 2 clusters of relays - the one on the left with 6 relays nad the one on the right with only 5 relays. Since, when the rear compressor comes on, I hear the relay click in one of these two clusters, I am guessing that the relays for the front struts are in there somewhere as well. Does anyone know which one it would be for the front struts.

Also, I just checked the 3 wires going to the top of my front left strut - the red wire has a lil over 8 volts dc, and the green/white stripe wire has a lil over 1 volt dc (this is with key in on position, but engine not running). Is this correct?

Thank you in advance to those of you willing to answer my questions.
 
#161 ·
Hi.........There are plenty of older Deville users in CF, but I doubt you'll get much action here in a "sticky". They're really for research info as opposed to questions. You might ask a Moderator to move this to either the main Deville forums or down a few threads into the active threads section of Suspension.
 
#162 ·
It appears that the service ride control is a common thread for a lot of different models. I am experiencing the same information code on my 1999 eldorado ETC. What I would like to know is does this message "service ride system" seem relevant at all if the suspension, stability and safe riding conditions still exist. Is this overkill by GM to have customers who are afraid something disastrous will happen if they do not have this error message taken care of by a "professional GM qualified mechanic"? I personally think these messages play to our sense of fear. And if we do not spend up to $3000 ta make this service message disappear we will all be tossed into some other dimension, think "The twilight zone" Just sayin.
 
#166 ·
sdhow's last post (the quoted one ^^^) was over 12 years ago. He hasn't been back since. Wonder if he ever tracked down the source of the error code........ ?

Did the GM procedure in post #127 do the job ? (but that's for a 4.9 ...........)
 
#167 ·
you just cant help yourself Sub, can you? LOL.

never tried #127, I fixed mine correctly by replacing the bad parts with ones ffrom a salvage yard. ;)

----------

sdhow's last post (the quoted one ^^^) was over 12 years ago.

<< 12-08-03 03:25 PM #3
sdhow's Avatar
sdhow
sdhow is offline Cadillac Owners Member>> Did i forget how to do basic math again??? Sure looks like 9 yrs ago to me....


He hasn't been back since. Wonder if he ever tracked down the source of the error code........ ?

Did the GM procedure in post #127 do the job ? (but that's for a 4.9 ...........)
Sub, not only are you a fine source of information, but amusement as well!!! Keep coming back....

I promise I will!!! :)

All joking aside, I have 2 thoughts, As far as post #127, I decided I'd rather repair the error codes by replacing bad parts rather than just jury rig around them
Secondly, I know how hard it has been to find the correct information regarding a 2 yr only suspension setup (and an optional one at that) so I figured I'd post my findings/repair info just in case I'm not the ONLY one trying to make a 20 yr old car work the way it was designed...
 
#168 ·
Glad that I keep you in hysterics - you're not such a bad read yourself. Keep posting and hope that others can get past the merriment and fix their cars - which is what CF is all about. If anyone in here has good advice stored between their ears, always post it where applicable.
 
#169 ·
Need some expert advice here. Purchased a '94 DeVille (with the SSS system) from the son of the original owner (38k miles). "SERVICE RIDE CONTROL" message is on the dash. Took car to the local Cadillac dealer and was told it would be one hour labor to diagnose; figured it was one of the struts and at least one pair of struts would need replacing. After one hour, I was told that none of the struts was receiving a signal and they would need more shop time (1 or 2 more hours) to examine the wiring to determine the cause, as there seemed to be a dead short. They said they would start at the fuses and relays and work from there. I went ahead and approved the additional time. After two more hours, I was told that the wiring was fine and now they were looking at two control modules and the wiring between them (I'll get to another point later, but I am after-the-fact guessing they were referring to the SSS module and the PCM). After another 1.5 hours I was told the car needed a new "Body Control Module", which they would have to order. I asked what the bill was so far and was presented with 4.5 hours that was $20 per hour HIGHER than the shop rate I had been quoted when I made the service appointment two weeks earlier. Oops, someone must have given me an incorrect rate...I told them to close out my bill and give me a detailed estimate on their recommended repairs with a list of needed parts, part numbers and prices. Kind of felt like I was financing the education on the Cadillac SSS for his service technician and I still did not have a great deal of confidence in his diagnosis. I was told by the guy in the parts department a price for the "needed parts", but "I didn't need the part numbers because they knew which ones to order and would get them when I made another appointment to have the rest of the work done".

Long story short, I referred back to the factory shop manual and could find no "Body Control Module" for a '94 DeVille with SSS. Called back the service writer at my local Cadillac dealer and, after consultation with the service tech, now decided it was the PCM that my car needed. OK, now that's at least a part this car has!

Fast forward to yesterday. Had a reason to call the owner's son and he said the car was taken to their dealer for diagnosis of the same thing before I bought it. He said his dealer had told him whatever was defective was no longer available from GM and the cure was this bypass harness that GM sells. Called that dealer this morning, but no notation was made on the work order except "Check and Advise", but no mention was made as to what the advisement was. This was only about six weeks ago, so I asked to have the tech or writer who handled the car to give me a call back; I'm hoping maybe they remember what they found out when they inspected the car in late October.

Does any of this sound plausible? HELP!!!!!

sdhow
sdhoward@parker.com
Did you find the problem??? I have the same code on my 93 deville can you help???
 
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