Push Button Start

I heard recently that if your brake/taillight bulbs on a push button start were broken or blown you could not start the truck. Is this true?

 

This is the first I have heard of this interlock! I don't think that this is true, but then again what the hell do I know.

 

awesome anti- theft deterrent

 

Don't know, but I highly doubt this is true.

 

Bulbs no but if the fuse blows or brake light switch fails yea it probably won't because push-button start vehicles need to see a brake input to enable starting.

 

by chance, did the whimsical person who told this also carry a potato-phone?

 

Probably a banana phone like the Got Junk guy.

 

Nah, obviously into hi-tech. Most likely a shoe phone.

 

It was just in a Casey ladelle video about a Tacoma no-start recovery.

The story as he told it is; They backed into a tree at a trailhead, broke the taillight, and then because the truck couldn't 'see' the brakes being activated, it refused to start.

Still not enough info to know for sure, but definitely something to be mindful of. I see so many Kia's every day without brake lights, I'm obsessive about checking mine for functionality.

 

Pop-Tart phone. We should at least keep up with the technology.

 

I would suspect there was more to it than a busted taillight, a blown fuse or possibly shorted CAN lines due to wires or a sensor in the rear getting hit would make much more sense.

 

Very possibly. He didn't post a video of that recovery for us to see any public facing evidence, but he's also not one to overstate things to drum up clicks or drama. It sounds like after he towed it out, that was the story the dealer gave the customer for the repair.


But that said, I'm sitting around at a campground with nothing else to do but enjoy the outdoors. Sounds like a fun project.

 

Just a side note for an illustration:
When I don’t want to get totally in, sit and press the brake pedal with my foot, I press the trailer brake control button and the Start button. Works well when working on the vehicle.

 

I'm not willing to break mine to find out! lol

I doubt this is true.

 

please tell me my 2023 with a physical key doesn't do this?

 

Ok, For Science!



Both tail/brake and tail/turn bulbs were unplugged, as well as my curt sacrificial trailer adapter/extension harness for my opt7 bar. So the only working rear brake/turn light was the third brake light.

Truck started every time. Tried with and without my trailer harness.

Of note, my truck is an 18 sport, without blind spot system.

My suspicion is that the truck from the incident was new enough and equipped with blind spot monitoring.

It then must have backed into a tree hard enough to cause a short in the blind spot module on it's canbus wires, which will definitely obliterate the canbus communication system and can cause a no-start condition from a lack of communication between modules.

 

You did all that just because of this thread.
That's well above and beyond!!

 

Shows you why it's so dangerous for me to have a 4 day weekend...

 

Darn, you don’t have BSM. I was going to ask you to short those CAN wires and continue in the name of science. I do suspect we are not entirely correct that a short at the BSM modules will prevent starting. My new, but unproven theory is that the ECU that I can’t currently remember the name of does some buffering and isolation between the different CAN nodes. Otherwise there would be no reason to have said CAN module.

Also the Tacoma would be targeted for theft at the BSM connectors like some other vehicle is targeted at the headlights which are CAN controlled.

 

No, physical key vehicles generally don't require a brake input to start.

All depends on how the CAN networks are wired, interconnected, and module to module dependancy.
Most vehicles anymore have multiple networks with different speeds and traffic priorities that are bridged and managed by one or more gateway modules.

How it's all laid out greatly affects how it all operates and how robust it is.

I've not delved much into Toyota CAN systems, I haven't needed to and 2nd gens have a relatively basic system.

I do know on GM trucks for example the Powertrain CAN or High Speed GMLAN as they call it runs all modules in an interconnected parallel configuration with terminating resistors on each end, one in the front typically in the PCM and the other in the rear either as a standalone or in the Chassis Control Module. If one or both CAN wires or modules at any point on the network get cut/disconnected/shorted it affects pretty much the whole vehicle with anything from glitches with the instruments to limp mode to it being in a completely "bricked" state until communication is restored.