Ideas?

Hopefully one of you guys knows what's up so I don't have to pay an $84 tow and $50 diagnostic.. My '12 Taco seems to have developed a short last night. All electrical flickera/reseta real fast when the battery is connected. The alarm does these little half chirps as it does it. I believe it only did it with the ignition on at first, but now it's even when the battery is just connected, as mentioned.

I already checked and reseated the fuses. I'm assuming an animal or something did it, but any ideas would be great.

 

I'm hairbrained for not adding this.. I only slept 3 hours last night.

I brought my battery inside to test it, and it read 100% on one of my chargers and green on my Battery Tender, so the battery seems fine. I also had a friend come over and hooked some cables up to my wires straight to eliminate the battery - exact same thing.

 

Did you get suckered into buying a dealer installed security system? My local dealer puts one called a Silencer on every vehicle on the lot and try's to sell them at the end of the deal. They cause all kinds of problems when the battery in the remote dies.

 

Toyota weaK link:

The damn battery clamps are prone to corrode and limit the amount of current. They may look great, but they could be corroded and not makeing a good connection. Clean them up with some sand paper or similar before throwing money at the thing.

I've owned 6 Toyota's thru the years, every one would corrode the battery post clamps.

I always laugh when I these things come up. I went to the dealer to pick up a new pair, even had the part number. He reaches under the counter and brings out a box of brand new battery post clamps. I guess they are such an issue, the parts counter keeps a heafty stock handy.

 

Are you still under warranty?

Need more info...Like...when did this start happening? What started to happen?
Did it mysteriously just start chirping & flashing by itself? Or did you turn the key one day to go to work and it started doing it?

So, you have the battery totally disconnected right now?

What type of alarm is it?

How does your alarm get reset? Remote? Key?

I can't say much about the Toyota alarms, but many years ago I had problems with an aftermarket alarm that would arm itself. And....the car jacking feature shut the car off while we were driving one day. Weird shit.....

 

The truck has the stock alarm that they all come with, as far as I know

I actually have some parts I need to wire in, like remote start/alarm, but all I have done thus far is put in an automatic tailgate lock. Removing those wire clamps was going to be my last troubleshooting phase, but I'm highly doubting that's what it is.

I didn't see any corrosion. I thought about sanding, but I didn't think it was the case when I put jumper cables directly on the clamps, without the battery hooked up. It did the same exact thing. I will definitely give it a go tomorrow, though.

Everything is as I said. Was running fine when I turned it off last night. Went to get in it this morning, and it's like there's a short. I turned the key, and everything keeps flashing and resetting. Yes, the battery is completely disconnected right now. Stock alarm - keyless entry remote.

I will definitely give the terminals a good sanding and look tomorrow. I didn't think that was it, but apparently they're a pretty common problem with Tacos..

 

you can test a battery all you want it will more than likley test good the best way to test and see if a battery is any good is to keep it hooked to your truck and try and crank it while you have a meter on it and that will tell you if it any good or not

 

Well like I said, I tried jumping straight through the terminals as well, sans battery, with the same result.

 

I sanded the terminals, wires, and the little ground that bolts to the truck near the negative terminal - no dice.

I unhooked the two connectors for the tailgate lock where they're wired in to eliminate that whole harness as well.

Unless anyone else has an idea, I guess I'm getting it towed in the morning.

 

Not sure how hard it would be to be sure to get all the fuses back in the correct location but .... I'd pull ALL the fuses from everything you can get to and see if it goes away. If it does go away, reinstall each fuse one at a time and see if you can isolate the circuit that is causing the problem then drive it to the shop. If it still does it with all fuses out ... either get out a volt /ohm meter to see what's still hot and where or - do what you planned ...... good luck this could be either an easy or nasty problem....

 

I'll definitely try the fuse thing tomorrow. I checked them all already to be sure one wasn't partially burned and acting crazy.. not that that's even possible. I was just doing whatever simple troubleshooting stuff I could. I wasn't aware that it could run with all the fuses taken out. Thanks.

 

It's not that it will "Run" with all the fuses out. With all the fuses out then try hooking up you battery and see if the problem goes away... if so the problem is on one of the fused circuits. As you put them back one by one when the problem reoccurs you know which circuit the problem is on. If it's, say the radio or courtesy light circuit, leave that fuse out and continue putting the fuses back in place one at a time to be sure the issue is with only one circuit. Then try to start .... Of course if the fuse you had to leave out was for the fuel pump or computer, etc. , it's not going to run/start.

 

I've had it fixed for a couple days now. Thought I'd update for you guys and anyone else who has the same symptoms and happens upon this thread.

It was the battery. Let that be a lesson to not trust a home charger's green LED or "100%" indicator as a sign that it's still good.

After screwing around with the fuses for an hour, unsuccessfully trying to isolate what it might be, I threw in the towel. I sure wasn't going to take the plunge until I did about the easiest thing possible. I took the battery to Autozone, and he told me it wasn't even charged. I did try cranking it a few times, but I didn't think that would drain the thing. He charged it for about 45m to an hour while I did other things, tested it, and told me it was no good when I returned. I bought a Duralast Gold, threw it in, and it's been clear sailing ever since.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

 

It would be way easier to just pull one fuse at a time...

 

I pulled them in non-essential groups to narrow it down, probably 4-5 at a time. Once that got me nowhere, I started pulling ones that seemed essential to the engine running one at a time until I got nothing.

 

I just saw this. I was going to say your battery is bad. I've had a few battery's do this.

 

X2. Bad batteries can still show 12.6V with a multimeter or charger. Gotta load-test it to know fur shure.

 

Now that it's fixed it's easy to be an armchair mechanic, however for those that might read this later, always check your battery under load. If all you have is a volt meter, run your headlights, or even have someone hold the key in start and take your measurement.

2 years on a factory batt doesn't sound so good to me. Glad you have the warranty now.