That sounds horribly familiar! (Old, relatively non-fancy, Ford Focus; it limped along with the failure.) The explanation makes sense, which it didn't at the

That sounds horribly familiar! (Old, relatively non-fancy, Ford Focus; it limped along with the failure.) The explanation makes sense, which it didn't at the time, and the traction control button didn't help. The specialist garage initially said "sensor failure", as I assumed, having lost my OBD device.