Head Light Issue. Troubleshooting Help Needed.

So, the old taco hasn't been getting driven much lately. So, naturally she is pissed off at me, and has decided to start "acting out". First, a small oil leak. Then, a CV boot. Now....well...now she has gone too far.

I decided to try and fix our relationship. I thought a nice hour long jaunt to basketball night and back would maybe, you know, rekindle things. Apparently, Tammy Tacoma had other plans.

The ride there was awesome. I rolled the windows down, opened up the rear cab windows, turned up the tunes. Life was good. We were getting reacquainted well. I couldn't stop thinking about how much I missed driving her.

We arrived to the gym, unscathed. Neither of us got out of sorts with each other, it was a nice drive. I went in, and played ball for about two hours. This is where things started to go south. At this time it was dark, as it was about 10:10pm, E.S.T. I unlocked her, and jumped in. Pushed the clutch pedal in with great familiarity, and turned the key. VROOM. She started right up, and on came the stereo right where I left off with Beastie Boys. A couple of they guys decided to stop over and say a few kind words about her, and I just smiled and agreed with them.

As I went to leave, I clicked the head lights on, and nothing. No head lights. I had interior lights. Just no dim headlights. So, I thought, I'll click on the bright to see if maybe the bulbs blew. Nope, the brights worked just fine. Except, the indicator for brights on the dash board didn't come on.


So, I have bright lights, with no indicator, and no dim lights, but I have interior lights.


My questions are:
Is this a "Switch" issue with the turn signal stalk?
Could the "dim" filament pop, without the bright filament popping?
If this were a fuse issue, wouldn't it take out BOTH the dims and the brights?


Any help troubleshooting this will be appreciated.

 

could be a relay as well. i dont know much about the 1st gens, but it should have low and high beam relay that you can check. find the low beam relay and switch it out for a like-type relay you find near it and check if your low beams work again

 

these trucks have separate fuses for daytime driving lights, low beams, and high beams, so check all those.

it does sound like its going to be the headlight switch thou

 

Thanks guys.

 

Just wanted to finally (I know, shame on me) update this thread.

The fix was uber simple. Almost stupid it seems.

Apparently, BOTH of the low beam filaments went out, at the same time. This has to be some sort of statistical anomaly. I've never heard of this happening to anyone.

Both HIGH beams still in tact and working...low beams...no go.

So, the fix was to just replace the bulbs.

 

Did your indicator light also start working on the dash again? Or was that a separate issue?

Reason I ask, my '04 I bought recently has no headlight indicator on the dash, at least not one that lights up lol. I know it should, it has one that lights up for the high beams. The actual headlights work just fine, I'm just not getting an indicator light on the dash...was curious if you figured out that issue on yours, or if it was only out because the bulbs were out...

 

Toyota used a trick to light the high beam indicator. The high beam indicator light is wired to ground in series with the low beam filaments. When the high beams are on, there is still voltage to the low beams, but the only path to ground is through the high beam indicator, so it lights up. When low beams are on, current goes directly from the filaments to ground through the headlight switch, so the high beam indicator is off. If both low beams are burned out, then the high beam indicator will not work.

Wish I had seen this thread last year. I would have suggested the possibility that both low beams were burned out based on the high beam indicator not working.

And I'm not sure if Toyota still uses this setup. Corollas and other models in the 90s seems to be wired this way.

 

HAHAHA, its cool! Its awesome that this community (TW) has such an educated, technically sound populous.

 

I might as well dig this thread back up. I've got a 2011 ...What would cause my headlights to stay on even if the switch is off? Everything seems to work fine except i can't manually turn the headlights off... they only turn off if I shut the truck off. I've recently installed new HID's and all was well for a couple weeks... but now they won't turn off at the switch? Relay ? Fuse? Thanks in advance!

 

Day Time Running Lamps. Or DTRL for short. There are quite a few threads on how to disable it.