4H won't engage

On my way home I turned on 4H at low speed as I do every couple of weeks. This time it did not engage and the light just kept blinking. This is an automatic transmission. I just went out to try it again in the driveway and now I am getting several other messages like "Anti Lock brake system fail". Anyone else have this problem? Delaer time??

 

If it’s under warranty I’d just go to the dealer.

 

Had this happen on mine at 10k miles. After the dealer attempting to replace everything but the actuator it turned out to be the actuator was bad.

 

Roadie, the dealer has had mine for 3 days now and had to call a Toyota field rep or something like that. They finally have decided it was the actuator. This is a CPO used vehicle and it still under warranty - thank goodness.

 

Yep sounds identical to mine. They had my truck for 2 weeks waiting for upper management approval for each step of troubleshooting and parts replacement.

 

Roadie, Did they get it fixed? Where is this Actuator located - tranfer case? Transmission? They say they are doing "diagnostics"! Must ne a major deal or an inept crew.
Thank you for the replies.
Russ

 

Transfer case I believe. Yeah it was fixed after attempting other, less expensive parts most likely. Works fine now. The dealer is at the mercy of upper management and mine refused to expedite parts or do anything to make the repairs go quicker.

 

In case others see this thread, my resolution was a new battery and not the actuator. My truck is a 2018 OR with 13k miles. The battery wasn't able to send enough voltage to make the actuator engage fully so I'd get the transfer case blinking light on the dash. They replaced the battery and so far, so good.

 

Mine is a 2018 TRD Sport and in addition to the blinking 4WD indicator it also had an ABS failure msg and a PCS failure msg. Surely they could figure out of it was a battery issue. Been there since Monday.

 

Glad you found the fix, but it seems odd that only the actuator would be affected by a faulty battery and nothing else.

 

Something is fishy here. The truck runs off the alternator when it’s running. Unless there was a wiring issues the actuator should of had enough voltage and current to actuate.

 

The worst part about taking this to the dealer is it will stick with the truck for life. I had a hard time selling my 99 4runner because 20 years ago it wouldn't come out of 4x4. It stays with the Carfax.

 

^^^ As Larry says.... The alternater should put out around 13,8 volts. That should make her work... Were you trying to switch without the truck running..??

EDIT... it should still work that way too..

 

I don't disagree on either counts, but electrical gremlins are just that. I had a 2007 X3 that had a bad chassis ground and the only thing it was impacting was the remote unlock, which I attributed to a low battery in the FOB. The strap eventually disintegrated and the car quit running. The shop found that disintegrated ground strap by accident, replaced it and the car fired up and ran like it was supposed to and the FOB worked way better after that.

The truck is under warranty so I brought it in. If it weren't, I'd have thrown $$ at it and just put in a new actuator. Perhaps the bad battery is masking a failing actuator, but time will tell. For now, that was what the dealership told me and I can confirm my 4wd is engaging/disengaging perfectly again.

 

The dealer just called and they got the actuator to disengage (or whatever) by using higher voltage and "overpowering" the thing. New part will be here in the morning and installed tomorrow. This dealer has never seen this problem before. Thanks all for the replies.

 

I'd be curious to see what the electrical looks like with the cover removed.

Common causes are dirty swipe contacts(similar to the diff actuator) or the gear-tooth timing is off.

 

So they say that the problem is the battery, swap the battery, now they have to put power directly to the actuator to get it to engage/disengage. Either the actuator is binding, or the unit isn’t receiving enough current to engage the solenoid. It’s either a bad actuator or a wiring issue. Nothing to do with the battery at all, and I’m sure the charging system is fine as well.

 

Finally got the truck back after a bit over a week. All is well and the best part is it was covered under the CPO warratny. Thanks to all for the replies.