why the overly complicated fusible link inside the accessary cigarette lighters?

Toyota in their infinite wisdom, puts fusible links built into the back of the accessary cigarette lighter sockets.

I just spent an hour sorting it all out, finally to realize its a bad fusible link in the socket itself, the easy fix was to just replace the insulator washer with a regular washer to bypass the bad fusible link and fix it.

pretty sure its not like you can just go get any aftermarket socket to pop in there since it has to fit the housing to mount

it is separately fused, plus there is a relay on it for extra safety, so WTH, why add more failure points that require you take the lower dash out just to find the problem?

no question, just had to rant about it

 

any way, if any of you have one of the accessary plug stop working test to see if the tiny wire (fusible link) lost connection, if it did, just take it apart by undoing the nut and popping the insulator washer out to replace it with a regular washer and its fixed that easy.

they are both tied to the same wires so if both are out then its a power supply/fuse or relay problem, but if only one goes out, no need to look any further, the fusible link went bad in that one socket

 

There's a fusible link? Aren't the cig lighters fused at the integration module? I was in there the other day and it had a 15A fuse.

 

They're power outlets not cigarette lighter sockets. Cig lighter wont work in them.

 

yep, but mechanicjon is right, im pretty sure the power outlets are a little different in that a cigarette lighter wont work in them, so maybe the fusible link isnt on the cigarette lighters too.

if you look at the back side of it there is a tiny black wire looking thing about 1/8" long and that is the fusible link part of it

I found a video that shows it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2SphvH4Kno

 

Toyota was out thinking stupid people you know the type that keep sticking a bigger and bigger fuse in until they're wondering why the dash caught on fire. The same stupid people will they babble on how they'll never buy another Toyota again while the fire investigator finds that a dime somehow fell in there. Half of engineering problems these days are related to making everything child and idiot proof

 

Yep

 

Accurate. People will do it with all makes too. It's funny, the 'complaints' I hear folks express of different vehicles, manufacturers, etc rarely are an actual defect in engineering or execution. It's usually lack of knowledge or experience on the owner.
So, yeah, itchy nailed it.

Edit: going back over a few in my mind, especially on full size domestics since 2000 or so, I correct myself above from 'rarely' to 'usually aren't'.