Radio shuts itself completely off and airbag/traction control light come on?

I have a 2010 tacoma double cab trd off road with 62000. I recently am having troubles with what I think is a wiring issue. I am driving down the road and my radio shuts down, I mean completely off with no power. The clock goes dead and the air bag lights come on(both driver and passenger). The traction control light comes on also. I hooked it up to a scanner and it didn't have any stored codes. The truck drives fine just have a Christmas tree on my dash. Then wait a while and the radio reboots and works but lost all my presets and the clock resets. The air bag light goes off but the traction control light stays on. I have not been able to turn off the traction control light. This happens almost every time in drive the truck. It happens and then the radio is dead for anywhere from 5 minutes to 4 hours. I have checked fuses and chased all the wires to check for bad grounds and shorts. Can't find any. Any ideas?

Thanks.

 

My 2 cents...

Start eliminating things and possible causes. Sounds like you have a sort on one line somewhere. Probably to do with power as the clock resets and all of your radio presets are gone. The short doesn't need to be to ground but could be to other signals. I would start at the radio since it seems to be a visual indicator that the problem is occurring. The radio has constant battery connection and panel light connections... Pull out the radio and unplug all of the connectors to it. Then see if the problem still happens. I would rather have a radio that is shorting internally than a wire in the harness shorting internally. It also would explain why there are no error codes stored in the computer since the error is not related to any of the car's sensors. Let us know what pulling the radio does.

 

Look on the face plate of your radio and see if there is a tiny number that says AD1807. If so you might have one of the haunted Delphi ones that do goofy things. Mine has been replaced 3 times and I know it was still a problem on some of the 2010's.

 

K I unplugged the radio and it still does it. All the lights are off when I start up the truck and then as soon as I reverse a few feet the lights come back on again. It did this once before along time ago but it seemed to cure itself until recently it is acting up again for about the last month. Could a radio short cause the airbag and traction control lights to come on?

 

The radio faceplate says A51864.

 

I doubt it, they should not be related at all ...but the radio does power off and the clock dies at the same time - I don't see the connection between the two yet they are somehow connected. Clearly something is sorting and causing the radio / clock to lose power. Electrical noise or drops could confuse the other systems. I would be worried tho, as I wouldn't want any air bags deploying for no reason. Also, I guess it may not be a short, it could be a bad or weak connection too. Do the lights that light seem to be lit at full strength or do they appear to be a little weaker? This may sound like a silly suggestion, but you may want to also unplug then plug back every connector you can find - one of them may be dirty corroded or just not sitting well. Try all the ones you can find under the dash and under the hood.

 

My radio did that. Would shut off or come on. Buttons wouldn't work. No controls sometimes. So I replaced it.

 

K i figured out the problem. There was a bad connection in the fuse box with the radio 10 amp fuse. I could see it arcing at night when trying to troubleshoot the issue. So I put a new fuse in and bent the prongs just a little bit which caused the connection to be the way it should be. Wala fixed.

 

Are you sure??? Haven't you heard of the ghost in the machine?

Glad you found it!!

 

Ok hear me out, Have your battery tested. I had the same thing happening in my son's Ford. We changed the battery to full but turns out he had only had one good cell in the battery. So for shits and giggles have it tested at any auto parts store