Electrical issues - Causes radio restart

My truck has had an issue since day one. The truck head unit would randomly restart without rhyme or reason. Toyota acknowledged the issue and replaced the radio... 3 times. I'm on my latest OEM radio, and it has gotten worse. This time however, I've noticed something new.

During COVID the truck mostly sat in the driveway. It seemed right after we started driving the truck again, the problem got extremely worse. It was obvious after a little bit of driving, the problem was triggered whenever we hit the brakes to come to a stop with any force other than a coasting stop. It almost seemed as if there was a minor surge in the electrical system.

I've examined all of the connections from the battery up to the distribution block with nothing obvious. Any ideas where to check next?

Something else worth mentioning. I just bought a new

$280 Alpine ILX-W650 Digital Multimedia Receiver with CarPlay and Android Auto Compatibility

Alpine ILX-W650 and want to make sure I have everything in order before installing it...

 

My hypothesis is a bad crimp/connection either on the ground or the constant power. It could be at the stereo's plug (truck side), at the fuse box, and anywhere along its path where there's a electrical plug. The pins would need to be removed from their plugs to be able to inspect them.

 

You could rig up a temporary wire for the ground, grab a wire and go from the head unit's case to ground, if the problem persists then you know there's probably nothing wrong with the ground wire in the plug or at the location where that wire gets its ground at.

 

This is a good start. I'm going start chasing ground once I pull the headunit... again.

 

You can do the same test with the constant power (labeled TO BATTERY on schematic) as well, use a fuse. I would do the ground first.

 

I don't know if you bought your truck new or not but some fuse taps are thicker than fuses, a previous owner might have used one, removed it when they sold the truck, and reinstalled a thinner fuse. Just telling what I've seen in the past is all.

 

It was bought new... and I have a couple fuse taps in use up under the hood for the trigger wire used by the switch pro. Hmmm.

 

I've never seen a problem with this style.

I have seen problems a few times with this style but only if the fuse tap was removed. The fuse tap spreads out the terminals and when they're removed and a fuse put in their place they can have connection problems.

It sounds like yours are still installed. I've never seen a problem with either style fuse tap when they remain installed.

Try those temporary jumpers and hopefully that will lead you into the direction that you need to take with the repair.

My granddaughter just came home for the first time, I gotta go.

 

Toyota has had issues with their stereos for quite a few years with hanging up and not responding and since they started installing the touchscreens rebooting issues.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-e&q=Toyota+Stereo+Reboots

Everyone I know that has had those issues have fixed it by installing an aftermarket stereo. It fixed my issues with the stock stereo.