Advice on dealing with The Dealer

If you bought the Taco with the mods, then leave them, esp if you bought it from a Toyota dealer.

 

Charge current does vary quite a bit. The electronics are built for those fluctuations.

 

Just trade it in, you'll probably come out ahead anyway.

 

So it's looking (to me, anyways) like the alternator is the very likely culprit. When I replaced the battery after the initial symptoms started, it ran perfectly for 3/4 of the trip back home ( roughly 20mi) and then began to act up again. The final leg home, the distance and time the truck would run before stuttering out became less and less, ultimately barely able to move parking spots in my apartments lot. I found one for under $400 from a dealer up north. Gonna give it a try and hope for the Toyota gods to be appeased

 

Very easy quick check of the alternator: Start the truck and while it's running disconnect the battery's negative terminal. If the truck dies, your alternator is bad.

More sophisticated check of the alternator using a multimeter: when the car is running, check the voltage across the battery and if it's 14 to 14.5 volts then you're charging the battery. If not, then your alternator is bad.

 

Replaced the alternator ($500 from advance, oh well) got it in (which is a pain to get to the one bolt on the firewall side) jumped it and..... BOOM! No more malfunction warnings, she purred like a kitten. Went for a drive for 45min to re charge the battery, and parked feeling like a bad ass. For a whole 2 hrs later when, while walking the dog I thought, "I'm just gonna fire her up real quick to make sure" and.... NOOOOOOO!! No start. No crank even. Same error messages, and back to no crank environment. Then from fellow member Konagrn (thanks for your insight, btw!) I was instructed to look at the bulbs in the tail lights- they were causing his very similar problem. Sure enough, both middle bulbs were fried. So replaced bulbs and in the process I deleted the vampire clip tied into my reverse with the aftermarket light set up that I also removed. Finally, i found it... so many posts with my problem, and time and again were resolved by something small like bulbs, cleaning maf sensor, jigglying a wire, this is going to start.. nothing. I feel like maybe now it needs a reset, but I don't have techstream and I tried the battery terminals together thing, but I don't think that did it. Any other ways to reset?

Edit: there is now a very noticeable buzzing coming from the fuse block when key is put into ignition. There has to be a short somewhere, right?