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

use your phone & record the situation so they dont think youre crazy,
If they can see a video of it happening, theyre more likely to believe you,, especially if its totally intermittent.
Just a suggestion....

 

Trade it in, but make sure there was sometime between builds. Tacos on the lot Taco holds its value. There's no reason to play with 4G problems get another. Could be bad 12v batteries similar to Maverick or you got the one off bad battery. Do you have a hybrid? If so that's better reason to dump a vehicle with possible electrical issues.

 

My fordpass is registered in Canada I'm pretty sure the salesman was high on cocaine that day.

 

Would be great if threads about issues attributed to Toyota included a list of mods on the front end. The headlines are provocative, revelations come later, and a few pages in, they end up reading like a mystery generated by ChatGPT. Happens all the time.

Either way, glad that you tracked it down. Enjoy!

 

Taco behaved last evening when I took it for a brief spin, then back in the garage it shut down as expected with various things including the exterior lighting turning off in sequence. I noticed something for the first time - the start/stop button remained lit the longest time but after a minute or so, it was off too. Never saw that before...but then it wasn't something I'd be looking for. This AM Taco fired up just fine so the battery got a good enough charge during the brief sortie and it held overnight. I'll be using the truck today and tomorrow then it will be idle for several days again; if it starts OK after that I'll consider the problem solved. After both times I recharged the battery the display was receiving full voltage, but apparently the low voltage situation really messed with the computers.

Good idea. The dealer never actually saw the problem with the display not turning off but attributed it to a bunch of "communication errors" caused by the low voltage situation, and they predicted it might take a few start/run/stop cycles before everything resolved itself, as I experienced. If the display issue happens again I'll definitely record it. As an electrical engineer by degree and career...and a fairly decent bench tech as well...I know "ghosts in the machine" (intermittencies) can escape the best troubleshooters. But I don't believe this is a ghost...unless it returns...

That's certainly not on the table at the moment. Taco was perfect before I caused this problem with a stupid mistake. Even after just 6 months I have about 50% equity in this truck so I'm definitely not upside down in the loan, should have it paid off completely in less than 2 years. But if I were to trade a vehicle I bought new on another new one I would take an enormous hit on the depreciation and I'm not willing to do that unless a problem surfaces that can't be solved. This truck is not a hybrid. When I "did the math" the extra $3,700 for the hybrid never reached a payback for me based on gas savings alone, and I don't need the extra grunt since I never take it off road and will probably never tow anything substantial. The single 12-volt battery has apparently recovered. I hope I didn't shorten its life with the deep cycles that I know they don't like, but even if I did, that's a cheap fix. I don't believe there are any lasting electrical problems at this point.

So unless this situation changes, I'll call it "case closed". Thanks all for your attention to my query and your good suggestions. TacoWorld certainly rocks...!

 

Yeah, I should have mentioned the 2 electrical mods I made in the first post. They could always have a bearing on the situation whether it seems logical or not. And as it turned out, I'm now 100% certain I caused this dead battery problem with one of those mods, and the low voltage situation led to the display issue. Live and learn! I paid the dealer $32 on Friday for what they did. I'll consider that another "stupid tax". I've paid more than a few over my 7+ decades...

So for those who feel I wasted their time (I certainly wasted a bunch of mine!) with this issue, I apologize again. As Lunar Squirrel says, in future requests for help it will be much better if I mention any mods I made up front. And that's another valuable lesson learned...!

 

Not a problem at all. No wasted time on my part, this is the place for thinking out loud and chatting to work issues out. I built a FF5 Cobra a couple of years ago and those forums are full of nice people who are happy to help no matter the problem. They would never criticize or complain or suggest you give up and go get a new one. It’s a great way to do things and very helpful for the builder who is stumped. I can’t believe someone suggested trading it in - what a fantastically bad idea! I paid cash for mine, thereby saving thousands in financing, and bought the demo which had 1700 mies to save some more. So I could do anything I want with mine financially speaking, but I would have to be the dumbest person on Earth to trade-in a new vehicle because of a minor electrical issue, especially considering the factory will sort it out for me for free.

 

Yeah - I like the "thinking out loud" part. Always good to get diverse perspectives and there's global experience to tap for that on line. I'm involved in several other unrelated forums, one for over 2 decades. Pinball anyone...?

I have enough resources to have paid ca$h for Taco which was just a bit shy of $60K all in, but almost all of it is invested. I'm paying 4.99% for the $40K loan but I'm earning a good bit more than that in the market and I also didn't want to have to pay the cap. gains taxes on any stock sales at the moment, so I rolled the dice with the loan, which I'm paying off out of ordinary monthly income from SSA and my IRAs.

Cheers...!

 

A man who thinks! Like! I also pulled the trigger when I did, in no small part, to avoid the tariffs.

 

Yeah - how about that! In truth, I bought mine on 9/30, before retalliatory tariffs were a thing. I wonder what the 25% tarriff is adding now to the MSRP of a new Tacoma, 100% assembled in Mexico? The tarriff would be applied to the value as it crosses the border, net of any corporate profit, hold backs, domestic transportation, etc. But I'd think it has to be at least $10K on a high-end version. Taco sales are going to tank in the short term. I wonder how long until Toyota brings the final assembly into the states?

The timing on my purchase was "forced" on me. The '14 Sierra SLT (high end) I traded had failed inspection in July due to a badly rusted frame* and I had until 9/30 to still drive it legally. I had no intention of trading that truck until I got the bad news. It could have been repaired at considerable expense but how much time would that have bought me? My mechanic recommended I trade it, so I did to get the max. possible value out of it. The Toyota dealer gave it a quick lookover and test drive to make the trade offer which was several $K below KBB...but I didn't dicker which might have caused them to take a closer look. (I did check several dealers, the best offer was about 50 miles from where I live; few dealers had a Limited model on their lot.) Fortunately they didn't ask me if anything was wrong with the GMC - I would not have lied - I simply presented it "as is", caveat emptor.

At my age I really don't need a truck anymore, little that I use it for "truck" purposes like hauling firewood and hay which I did more or less for 40+ years. In many respects it was an inadvisable purchase as I have another perfectly fine vehicle that racks most of my miles. I also have a HD Lowrider and a Boss Hoss trike. But when asked why I bought the Taco I reply..."Because I could...!"


*So I trade a truck with a bad frame...on a model that had a history of bad frames, albeit resolved...LOL... I never seriously considered trucks with no frames, like the Maverick or Ridgeline...