14" display won't turn off automatically - battery discharges

Hey folks - I've encountered something neither the dealer nor I can figure out although this is a new issue for both of us and only 1 attempt at diagnosis has been made so far. I was in my '24 Limited last Sunday to pair my new phone and in the process I guess I accidentally left the map lights on. Fast forward to Thursday, next time I wanted to use it (I don't drive this vehicle much...yet!), and it was dead. I charged the battery overnight and yesterday it started OK and everything seemed normal, so I drove it on an errand. But at my destination, I encountered a head scratcher - when I shut off the engine everything shut down as expected but the 14" display remained on (?!?). Nothing I could do would change that situation through multiple off/on/start/run cycles, although I eventually found out that I was able to turn the display off manually in settings/display and it would stay off. I was able to get the truck in at the dealer at the last hour on a Friday afternoon (thanks for that, Confer Totoya!) where surprisingly, the problem seemed to have resolved itself before they even rolled it in. I told them about the dead battery. They checked it over anyway, cleared multiple DTCs due to communication loss, and everything seemed OK, and it seemed that way to me as well as I drove off. When I got it home, the same problem emerged - the display would not turn off with the shut down so I again did that manually. This AM, the truck did not have enough power to crank again, so it's now back on the charger. Obviously, some circuit that should be off on shut down isn't turning off and the battery is draining.

I'll no doubt have to take it back in as soon as I can get an appointment, but in the meantime I figured I'd check with the brain trust here. Any ideas? What else can I check?

Thanks for any help/advice you can provide...!

 

Staying tuned for the 'rest of the story'

 

They what??

 

Have you tried a vehicle reset by totally disconnecting the battery?
Sounds like a software glitch.

 

Sorry - I accidentally posted it before completing the message...

 

Have not, but that sounds like a good idea. I'll have to let it charge up a bit more so I can fire it up to back it out of my crowded garage - then I'll have room to work under the hood. I presume I'll lose all my settings, like a full factory reset? Maybe not. Film at eleven...

 

Sounds like a software issue brought on by the battery being drained. But, wait, you said the map light being left on caused the battery to be drained. I thought the map light should shut itself off…

Anyway, I’m sure you’ve heard of the trailer mode issue where the software refuses to completely exit tow/haul mode. I had this happen and even though the dealer did the software fix that is required for this it still didn’t fix it. They told me to come back after they escalated it to Toyota. I went straight from Groove to the RV lot and hooked up my camper, towed it around the lot, then disconnected it and drove just a few hundred feet before the system requested that I confirm there was no longer a trailer attached. Once I did that it went back to normal operation.

I’m betting the system reset will fix it, but it does seem as though Toyota has some software glitches they are working through with the 4th gen. Good luck.

 

I thought the same thing about the map lights, so as an experiment once the truck was charged back up on Friday I intentionally left the map lights on as I shut down and exited the truck. Everything else that stays on briefly after shutdown seemed to turn off as expected, but after 5 minutes those map lights were still on so I turned them off manually - I assume that means they do not shut off automatically if they were turned on manually. (They do come on automatically when a door is opened and shut off automatically after a delay when the door is closed, as expected.)

I haven't done any trailering yet as I don't own anything to tow, so I haven't experienced any issues like yours. But thanks for the heads-up - I hadn't heard about it until now.

Yeah, we take a chance buying the first release of a new model/generation of anything and I considered that possibility. I got mine in Sept., was hoping most SW issues had already been fixed. The dealer confirmed I have the latest updates as part of their check yesterday. But I don't blame this on a SW issue since everything was OK until the battery drain...

 

Hmm, well, I’ll try the map light thing too just to be sure, but that doesn’t seem right. Good to know if that is the case. On the issue of first year problems, I really don’t understand people saying they would never buy them, especially when you buy from a company like Toyota. They’ve got your back, period!

 

I'd be very interested to know if you get a different result! I only waited ~5 minutes...maybe they would have gone off eventually...prior to a complete battery drain, that is!

I'm not 100% sure if leaving those map lights on was the root cause of my initial problem - I pushed the buttons several times after I realized the battery issue, not sure what position they were in. But if they indeed do stay on if turned on manually that would certainly explain the dead battery. If the opposite is true then I have a deeper problem...!

Sure hope Toyota has my back on this one...but I'm not worried. After Deming taught the Japanese "quality" following WW2, Kiichiro Toyoda took it to a whole new, world class level in forming Toyota Motor Corp...and they still maintain that distiction...!

 

And all the world’s manufacturing learned something from the Toyota way. I’ll let you know what I find out on the map lights. They are LED so it would take a very long time to run that battery down.

 

Your battery should have been able to power those map lights for days. Some other circuit was active and draining.

 

I assumed those map lights are LED and as such, it should take days (or weeks?) for enough draw-down...but it was 4 days. I know from experience that incandescent map lights can kill a battery in just a few days. I've been leaving this truck unattended for up to 10 days at a time with no problems starting it until this week. The potential issue with the map lights seemed too coindidental to rule them out but I won't be surprised if it turns out to be something else...

 

I just confirmed that after 39 minutes they were off. They probably time out at 30 minutes or less.

 

I would reboot the multimedia system by holding the volume knob in 10 seconds.

 

Great - I will repeat my experiment with a longer wait. So now I need to find another source of that draw...

 

Another good idea - Thanks! I wonder if in the process of pairing my new S25 Ultra I managed to mess something up? Good probability as I was working with it for a half hour or more trying to figure out the "Android Auto" feature. I eventually turned off that option in settings somewhere, didn't like the way it caused my phone to comandeer the whole head unit. I have to learn a LOT more about the whole multimedia system before trying that feature again...

 

Here’s another one: I just got my truck and set up the free 1-yr subscriptions, but through my messing around managed to block my use of them. I finally called Toyota and got a real person right away. She told me to cancel the subscriptions and then go back in and activate again. That worked perfectly.

 

OK - Some updates. After charging the battery a few hours I was able to get the engine started and I backed the truck out to have some room. But before I did anything, I checked something that had come to mind while I was trying to think this issue through. In Dec. I had a Kicker 10" powered subwoofer installed under the driver's seat which has been working very well for me, the same sub as I installed in my Santa Fe 4 years ago. (See the JBL speakers thread for my posts on that "upgrade" which included a "Beat Sonic" audio booster!) I noticed the sub's pilot light was on with everything else off so it was obviously drawing power when it shouldn't be. There's a 2-position power switch on that unit: "12-volt" which would be the position to use if there's a "system on" signal wire connected from the head unit, and "DC Offset" which is the position to use otherwise. It should have been in the DC Offset position (as I provided no signal wire), which turns the sub on when an audio signal is detected, but in fact it was in the 12-volt position. I had been messing around with other controls on the sub last Sunday when I was pairing the phone, must have accidentally moved that switch in the process. Now when the engine is off, the sub's pilot light is also off which it should be. So at least for the moment I think I have "solved" the battery drain problem. (D'uuuhhh!)

And once again, the 14" display is working properly (??). Every time I turned the engine off, the display went off as well, just as it's supposed to. I seriously doubt the sub's power switch being in the wrong position had anything to do with the display issue, but stranger things have happened! I'll do some more experimenting to try to determine if there's any interaction there. The only connections between the head unit and the sub are the four L/R, +/- high-level audio takeoffs, so it's hard to imagine there's any "reverse" signal to the head unit that would have caused it to misbehave? Maybe my whole system still had to complete it's recovery from the dead battery situation? More of life's questions that may never be answered...! I didn't try either of the suggestions above about resetting, didn't seem to have to. But I'll remember those if problems recur.

And here's another observation re: the map lights. Once again I intentionally left one map light on when I exited the vehicle and again, after a few minutes as everything else that's on a delay had turned off, that map light was still on. But as Bradcfi reported above, after about 20 minutes, the map light went off as well. So that confirms the map lights being left on accidentally could not have been the reason the battery drained. But here's another interesting finding. (I learn something new about this truck every time I get around it!) I opened the door and closed it again without touching that map light's switch...and once again it stayed on after everything else had switched off. And once again, after about 20 minutes it was off. So now we know...something...!

I'll take my Taco for a spin this evening while I pick up whatever I decide to have for supper just to make sure the battery is topped off. If it starts correctly tomorrow AM and the display is still working properly, I'll consider this case closed...and hope it stays that way!

I apologize for wasting y'all's time on what was apparently my "user error"...but, hey, we all learned something, right? And after all, if you were hanging out in this forum on a Saturday you probably had nothing else better to do anyway, right? If anything changes with this situation I'll provide another update.

Otherwise...in the immortal words of Emily Litella (a hard-of-hearing spinster played by Gilda Radner in the early days of SNL)..."Never mind!"...

 

Glad you got to the bottom of the battery drain, at least. One thing is for sure, all electronics act strangely at low voltages. I doubt that was the issue with the display but…