U0513: Invalid Data Received From Yaw Rate Sensor Module
What to do
Expect the stability control light to be on, and treat the car as if it has none — because it has. It drives normally; what has gone is the electronic safety net that intervenes when a car starts to slide.
Drive accordingly until it is fixed: more room in the wet, gentler on cold or greasy roads, no sudden corrections. Nothing about the car feels different, which is exactly the trap — the difference only appears at the moment you would have needed the system.
Mention any recent work. This sensor lives inside the car, usually under a console or a seat, and it must be bolted down tight and the right way round. Interior work, seat removal, or an alignment are the usual triggers — often a bracket left loose or a calibration step skipped rather than a failed part.
What this code means
The yaw rate sensor module is broadcasting data that cannot be accepted as true. See U0400 for what an invalid-data code is and why the module it names is usually the messenger rather than the culprit.
This is the one code in this range that is genuinely about how the car behaves, and it deserves more attention than its neighbours.
A yaw rate sensor measures how fast the car is rotating about its vertical axis — how quickly it is turning — and stability control compares that against where the steering is pointed and how fast the wheels are going. When those three disagree, the system decides the car is sliding and brakes individual wheels to correct it.
So a yaw sensor publishing implausible values leaves stability control with no basis to act, and the system does the only safe thing: it switches itself off and lights the dashboard. The car then handles as a car without stability control, which is to say normally right up until the moment it would have needed it.
The commonest cause is not the sensor. It is mounting: the sensor must be rigidly attached, in a known orientation, usually near the centre of the car under a console or seat. A loose bracket, a bolt left finger-tight after interior work, or a sensor refitted the wrong way round produces exactly this code from a perfectly good part.
The second cause is calibration. After suspension work, an alignment, or a sensor replacement, many systems need a stationary zero-point learn. Skipping it leaves the module reporting a permanent slow rotation while the car sits still, which is precisely the kind of impossible value this family names.
Likely causes
Start here
- Faulty yaw rate sensor · moderate
- Sensor not calibrated after replacement · specialist
- Corroded or loose connector · easy
Less common
- Damaged data bus wiring · moderate
Rare
- Faulty stability control module · specialist
Symptoms
Components involved
Information, not instruction
CarGeek is a reference, not a service manual. Its pages are written from public sources and from what other people have found, never from a manufacturer's own service information, so they can be wrong or incomplete for your particular vehicle. Some of what they describe carries real risk: high voltage, fuel under pressure, stored energy, hot and moving parts.
Have anything you intend to act on checked by a trained person against the manufacturer's own procedure for your vehicle. Nothing here replaces that procedure.
Community experience
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