Good Evening, I have been having issues with my 2011 V8 Vantage S for a year and a half now and no one can seem to fix it. Hoping I can get some information from someone here.

For starters my Vantage is my daily driver. I bought her with 44k miles and she now has 58k miles. As were all new Vantage S models mine has the ASM2! Here’s my issue.

While driving I will randomly get warnings of DSC SERVICE REQUIRED immediately follow by TRACTION CONTROL TEMPORARILY OFF. At first this was all that would happen. I could stop the car, restart and all would be normal. As time went on this was occurring more frequently.

Eventually, when this would occur, I would get a line that appears in my gear indicator. When this happens I am unable to change gears. I can’t use the paddles nor can I put it into drive with the D button. I also am unable to shift into neutral or reverse. The car will stay in the same gear until the revs fall too low and I’m automatically shifted into neutral.

At first I could restart the car and everything would be normal again. After happening a couple times the car would not restart. If the line was still in the gear indicator the car doesn’t even start. Usually if I wait long enough the car will eventually restart and be normal again. Sometimes this would happen again a few miles down the road sometimes it wouldn’t happen for a few days.

On top of all this on more than one occasion once this happens, I’ll also get the Check Battery Off Switch, TPMS and then the whole dash shuts off. After a couple minutes these seem to go away. It’s my understanding that the newer Vantages no longer have a battery off switch in the trunk like the older ones did. When the battery warning comes on I can not start the car either.

The closest AM dealer to me is about an hour and a half drive. Because of the distance I took the car into a reputable independent shop that works on high end cars. They diagnosed it as a bad ABS control module. Almost $2k later I picked her up drove off and the same day the warnings came back.

Highly displeased I made an appointment with the AM dealer. After 2.5 weeks of “diagnosing fees” they say they found the issue. A loose wire to the Transmission ECU. After paying them $1800 to fix a wire, I picked it up again. A week to the day, same issues again.

I then took the car to another independent shop in LA that had previous experience working on my car before I bought it. First off, the found a bad wire. Sure enough it was the wire that AM “fixed”! This shop rebuilt the whole wiring harness for me but that still didn’t fix the issue. They said it was the transmission ecu itself that was bad. They replaced it. Total bill there was a few grand. Btw this shop had installed a new clutch days before I bought the car. So at this point the clutch was a couple months old. Thinking there may have been a clutch issue they pulled the transmission to verify and it was just fine.

Picked the car up and the warnings came back on during the drive home. The independant shop owner then called a buddy of his who is a mechanic for an Aston Martin Racing team. With the symptoms relayed to him, he was sure it was the throttlebody as he replaces them all the time on the Vantage GT4’s.

I bought and installed a new Bosch throttlebody as well as 4 new wheel speed sensors. Those didn’t work either. Before it’s asked, I also installed a brand new battery.

Im at the breaking point. I’ve had three indy’s as well as AM look at this car and no one can tell me wants wrong.

On top of all this when it does occur and leaves me stranded on the side of the road, there is one thing that “cures” it for a short while and that is time. If I just let the car sit it will eventually clear and start like normal. Sometimes it clears immediately, sometimes 5 min, sometimes it takes an hour plus!

I still daily this car despite the issues and have been able to put almost 15k miles on it in 17 months of ownership despite being in and out for shops for a solid total of 4.5 months.

There is no particular type of driving that causes it either. It’s happened sitting at idle, 35 mph in the city, cruising on the highway and accelerating hard.

I want to be able to fully enjoy the car. I’m afraid everytime I take her on long road trips. I would like to be able to track my car as well but don’t want to pay several hundred dollars for track time only to have those warnings etc sideline me.

If anyone has any advice about what else it could be or how to fix it I’d love to hear it. I just don’t know where else to turn!

Might be a heat related issue. Everything works fine until a component heats up. You might have to bite the bullet and leave the car at a reputable Aston dealer with the understanding that they will drive the car with the proper diagnostic equipment attached so when the fault occurs they can identify it before it clears itself.
Good luck.

The heat issue could be a viable option. Not sure what could be overheating that would be causing it.

I have already replaced the battery as I thought the same thing. The battery I replaced was already a replacement. She’s on her third battery now at a minimum.

If waiting some amount of time always cures the symptoms, then it has to be some electronic device or module overheating. Could even be something as simple as a wire getting hot since resistance goes up with temp. This kind of intermittent failure mode is one of the most difficult to diagnose.

At this point, I suggest you put everything into a very clear, concise letter and shoot it off to the head of AML NA. You really need to get them involved so that factory engineering can be put on the case.