99 Tacoma ABS and SRS lights

If the occasional snow is all that you're worried about (in regards to yanking the fuse), just get better tires and drive slower.

I don't have ABS and have never missed it.

But I understand if you're wanting your truck to run the way it's supposed to.

 

Well, going back over what I posted in #7 last night from someone else's experience, I thought I would revisit that suggestion. Last night I pulled the main connector from the actuator, disconnected the wheel sensor and toned out the corresponding pins for that wheel sensor at the main connector. Turns out it's the top two on the right hand side of the connector looking at the male pins on the ABS actuator itself. Rather than just lightly wire brush the connections and reseat it several times like I tried before, I actually took a jewelers screw driver and gently scraped those two pins. As suggested in post #7 I also very gently bent the pins slightly. I then coated those two pins with dielectric grease. I also worked the female connection slightly with the tiny screwdriver to clean and slightly bend the connectors. I also thoroughly cleaned the wheel sensor connector and put some dielectric grease on it as well. I put it all together and drove around a few miles last night with no ABS light. In fact, I got so optimistic that rather than ride the R1 on a nice sunny morning I drove the truck in to see if it would stay off. 19 miles in to work today and still no light. It's looking very promising. Very strange how so many people would experience a bad connection with those two pins on the connector. Not sure if it's how the harness is pulling on the pins or what but the guy who came across this may be on to something.

 

Well, I've fixed them both now.

 

On top of fixing them both under my own diagnostics, I hit up the dealer for a refund for their crappy and inaccurate diagnostic service. A check for $125 is in the mail. LOL.

 

Actually you forget that the ABS lamp will come on if the IPC (cluster) cannont communicate with the ABS module, as well as if the ABS module says there is a code. Loss of communication could also include a bad wire to the ABS computer, as well as a bad ground, bad power wire, or blown fuse. All of these will cause an ABS lamp to come on. So before you replace a "defective" ABS computer, or any other computer, make sure it has power and ground to the proper circuits.

An ABS failure will never cause your base brake system to not work. ABS systems do not interrupt the base system, then enhance it. If you have a problem with your brakes not working at all, then look at your base brakes.

I will try to be delicate here. You can't just fault the dealership or the techs on this. An intermittant condition that YOU SPECIFICALLY described is very hard at times to find. It takes time and effort to locate the issue (as you yourself found) Techs do not work on your vehicle, or look at it for free. As you yourself said in an earlier post "The only problem with the above issue not relating to me is that my ABS computer does not respond or give any codes at all. And I have checked the ECU connection and cleaned it." So you can make a mistake, and it is no big deal, but the dealership and techs have crappy diagnosis? If you had checked the ABS computers connection as you said you had done PROPERLY, then you would have fixed it, since that is where the problem is. Now my point is not to flame you here. My point is that when it comes to electronics, techs are expected to follow the YEARLY changes in all the different vehicles that they have to follow. It is a LOT of work and training that goes on, and still people can make a mistake. If they had screwed something up, or broke something, then yeah, I would expect them to pay you back. They made a good-faith effort to look at an INTERMITTANT problem, and try to offer you a possible solution. You were not satisfied with that, just like you were not satisfied with your un-timely response here. I know I would never want you in my shop, that is for sure.

 

OK, first off, the girl in your sig is hot and very distracting as I try to type this.

This is a quick summary of how this went down. I searched high and low for an answer to either problem on the internet and found very little information. Extremely surprising for a vehicle that has millions of copies on the road. When I searched for info on a Ferrari F355 that I was rebuilding the engine on that only had 15k copies produced I found more information than I could possibly use. I had manuals shipped in the mail and parts for free and phone calls and on and on. I suppose I thought it would only get better with a very common vehicle. Not so, on several forums I tried.

I finally gave up and took it down to the stealer expecting folks that work on these every day to at least know how to plug in and read the codes. Apparently they couldn't even do that. He told me the ABS computer wasn't responding. (Hence the reason I posted earlier that I thought my ABS computer was bad) Well, that's because it's not connected to the OBDII port on a '99 and you have to plug in through the DLC port or use a jumper wire. Why do I know that and the dealer doesn't? Because I read the manual and he didn't. They did manage to figure that out the second time I took it in. But did not fully diagnose the problem, only told me they cleaned the sensor and it was fine. 2 minutes later the ABS light was back on. "Well, just replace the sensor" Still not the problem. Had any of these guys been truly informed (maybe Toyota's fault) they'd know that many others have this same problem and sensors don't fix it. One gentleman on ONE SINGLE POST on ttora.com solved it. I just couldn't believe it the first time and it wasn't until I thought maybe he was on to something did I really follow all his instructions and WALLA!

The Airbag Light was truly a B.S. story from the dealer. Code showed PSquib Short (To Ground). Their diagnosis, a bad keyswitch. He also went on to state that the keyswitch was actually working backwards. On when it's off and off when it's on. I pulled the keyswitch, dissected it and couldn't find a thing wrong with it. Then learned in the manual that with a couple jumper wires I could clear the codes. (I had asked the dealer to try clearing the codes first, possibly a mistake when I had the dash apart years ago, to which he didn't and insisted there was a problem) I went through the whole trouble shooting procedure for this particular DTC and found nothing wrong. Cleared the codes and it's gone, for good.

If I had taken this to Joe's Foreign Auto repair, I might not expect as much. But folks dedicated to Toyotas should know these vehicles a little better. I felt like it was a comlete waste of my time and money and fully deserved a refund. Period.

Not true. The ABS system is sensing wheel movement at each wheel. When it senses a wheel lock it releases that particular brake. In my particular case, the wheel sensor had a bad connection to the ECU, causing the ECU to think the front left wheel was actually stopped and skidding while I was braking. The ABS system then releases the brake on the front left wheel (a groaning sound and pedal pushback) making it much more difficult to stop with only one front brake working. I think you are thinking that the ABS was not doing anything. When the ABS light was ON the ABS system shuts off. Mine would function, with no ABS light, then while braking the sensor would lose connection and fail and the ABS would activate. After this the ABS system would realize there was a problem, shut down and turn the light on. After that the light would stay on with no ABS activation until I turned the key off and restarted the truck. Then the cycle would start all over again. It was very random and unexpected. This was also experienced by many others on ttora.com

 

First, thank you for the compliment on the sig. Everyone seems distracted so I love to leave her up there. I have actually gone through over 20 different sigs similar to this one, but this one got MASSIVE responses, so I kept it.

Now that you have given more detail on your experience at the dealership, I understand your argument for wanting a refund. Your earlier posts didn't allude too much to the details, and it sounded like you were just flaming them because you were angry. As for a faster response in the other auto group, that vehicle was a select group, and I am sure they could afford to send all sorts of things to you. We here are not all rich, and all the time we get newcomers here who want a quick fix, and then never hear from them again until the next problem. Most of us here from what I have seen are pretty quick to answer help questions, but sometimes we may miss a post or a new thread. Thousands of posts go on every day. It is easy for one or two to get lost in the shuffle.

To your ABS problem: First my background. I am an ASE certified master technician for over 17 years. I do know just a little bit about how systems operate. I do understand now your description about your operation, but I hold fast to my initial reply because your post did not allude to any details other than "it presented an immediate problem braking, as in, sometimes I can't" which indicated to me that you were saying your brakes were not working at all. In fact it was trying to operate the best it could, but yes, with a faulty signal, it will change some of the characteristics. You did still have 3 other wheels trying to brake, so it was not "sometimes I can't" but more like "the brakes don't operate like normal, and my stopping distance is longer because the ABS system is engaging when it shouldn't"

When asking for assistance and help, the more details you give, the better and more accurate a response. Also the more timely. When you give smaller details, then the response you get will be based only on what details you give. I didn't have your truck here to look at it. All I could do was respond to the information given. Since it was limited, I could only give a limited response.

That being said, I am glad you got your problems fixed, and hopefully it will help someone else here who may run into a similar problem.

 

Not all Ferrari owners are rich. And it's free to post responses. I just would have expected the opposite and have no responses on an exotic and loads of responses from a common vehicle.

I'm sure you're a fantastic mechanic and have many years of experience, but I used to work at a repair shop many years ago. Our best mechanic 'Pete' was not ASE certified and our worst 'Mark' was. The stuff that guy would send out the door was pretty frightening and his come back rate was pretty high. He once put the dually wheels on a pickup on wrong and I watched the customer drive it away with the rear wheels wobbling all over. Every time the owner would tell Pete to go get certified his response would be "so I can be a good mechanic like Mark?" I wonder whatever happened to that guy...

Trust me, I had many 'check my shorts' experiences with my brakes, be it 3 wheels or 4 braking. When you are coming up behind a car with a known braking distance and suddenly it's not stopping, that can really get your heart racing as you stamp on the pedal.

I'm happy to post a ton of info if I know I have an audience, which it didn't appear I did. I wasn't even sure if there was anybody on this forum at first.

Really, you gotta do something with that sig... my gosh..

 

LOL on the sig comment again. I understand that there are some technicians out there that are ASE certified and not practice good repair technique. However I am not one of them. I was also an instructor for GM for the last 7 years, training their up-and-coming new breed of techs. I never turned down a challenge at the dealership. I was the first tech in Florida to work on the new Tahoe hybrid when it came out, and was broke right off the delivery truck! We had 1 GM rep and an engineer come down to look at the truck, and both of them were quite surprised when I had already diagnosed the failure. I even told them that not only was the transmission broke, but that the PIM (the computer that controls the hybrid parts) was bad. Initially they both disagreed. After we replaced the transmission and test drove it, and more codes returned, then they were inclined to agree with me.

You stated: "I'm happy to post a ton of info if I know I have an audience, which it didn't appear I did." But again, it would not have taken but a minute or two to type up some better info. Don't get me wrong, I am by no means flaming you, I am just stating that a little more effort goes a long way, and since we have so many who come in, ask for help, then are gone again, it makes it where many of us are not interested in offering our help. I daily look around to see if there is a question that I can help on. I missed your thread until the day that I made my first comment. It happens. As for not being sure if anyone is on the forums or not, all you have to do is look at the number of threads, and the date on the posting to realize that this forum is HUGE and is constantly moving.

Again I am glad to see your truck is fixed. I hope to see you becoming a more active member in here as well. Welcome to Tacoma World!!

 

Damn this tacoma, LOL. ABS light is back on occasionally and the SRS light is flashing. Fiddling with the main ABS connector and get small improvements with the ABS light but can't get a good connection on that thing. Almost tempted to open up the ABS module and hardwire it to the connector. And the SRS light is the seatbelt tensioner. Good grief.