Just wanted to make others on the site aware of a fix I discovered for a problem that occurred recently with the Vehicle Stability Control system on my 2004 Toyota Highlander.

Vehicle had been acting fine and ignition switched off at a nearby shopping center. When restarted and driven away, after going about 200 ft. (on a clear, dry road surface), the following occurred:
“Slip” warning light on the dash came on (the one showing a car with skid marks behind it)
A beep was heard about 8-10 times in rapid succession
A rattling noise was heard and felt, same as if the anti-lock brake system was activated
The engine speed was throttled way back by the system

This went on for about 15 seconds, at which point the vehicle returned to normal. After driving about another 200 feet, the same sequence of events repeated.
Since local temperature was low at the time (18F-20F), I speculated that a brake line may have had water in it and frozen, causing one wheel to not rotate at the same speed as the others.

Since I did not need the vehicle right away, I waited about a week until temp. got up to 45-50F, let the car sit in the sun for 5-6 hours (the "sunshine treatment"? LOL - and I've never even worked for a dealership! LOL) and tried it again. Same problem occurred, again on a clear, dry street in my neighborhood. At this point, I was about to have the vehicle towed to the dealership as it would have been dangerous to drive it on highways in this condition.

On a hunch, I tried resetting the vehicle’s computer by pulling, then reinserting the EFI fuses (as suggested on another web site). This had no effect, so I disconnected the positive battery cable and left it off for 5 minutes while I cleaned up the battery post and cable end.
When I reconnected the battery, started the car and drove off: IT RAN FINE! The only down side: I had to reprogram presets in the radio.

Having worked with industrial instrumentation, I speculated that the wheel speed sensors may go through a ‘zeroing’ process and a bad zero (or ‘baseline’) correction may have somehow gotten stored in the computer for one of the wheels. The computer therefore erroneously concluded that all 4 wheels were not rotating at the same speed and activated the VSC system. My hunch was that resetting the computer would set all 4 wheel speed sensor inputs back to a true 'zero'.

Kind of makes me wonder if something similar may be responsible for the recent Toyota recall for ‘sticking’ throttle condition. I don’t know to what extent the throttle position is under control of the computer, but it seems to me the idle is several hundred RPM higher when first started, then comes down after a few minutes. Also, the VSC can command the engine speed to be cut back, so why not 'increased' as well? What if the computer suddenly and erroneously sets the engine speed up to 6000 RPM? Any Toyota techs out there that are familiar with the electronics care to comment?