4R Malfunction at Overland Expo East

[mcd_ovrlnd]

Was down at Overland Expo East this weekend. Beautiful weather and got to see lots of cool rigs. Got there Thursday. On Saturday I opened my rear hatch to do some stuff and had it open for quite a bit. Went to close it and ‘dead’ - like zero power. Thought, that’s odd. I am running my fridge and everything else off my power station. Had all my interior lights off if I opened doors and had separately powered lights I used. I do have a kill switch that I know has very small parasitic draw if you don’t turn it on, but I had it on. So went to start the car and it was dead. Like dead. Nothing even lighting up on the dashboard. Pulled out my Noco, dead. So guy next to me jumps me with his Noco. Takes many tries but finally starts. Let it run for a bit. Figure it’s okay. This morning go to leave, dead again. Noco doesn’t work after several tries. . So guy jumps me old fashioned way and it starts up. But I now have check engine light and the following messages flashing. Drove 6 hours home and worked fine but I never shut it off, even when I filled for gas. No freaking clue what is going on.

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[SC4Runner]

If I had to guess, I would say you have a bad battery. Do you have a code reader or any way to read your voltage?

 

[MTN Dew]

You likely triggered a bunch of low voltage codes. As to why this happened to begin with? I cannot really say I can only speculate that the engine may have timed out and turned off? Or maybe there is some overload protections that may have been triggered?

 

[mcd_ovrlnd]

If I had to guess, I would say you have a bad battery. Do you have a code reader or any way to read your voltage?

had it up at the dealer today to look at it. First, guy calls me 5 hours after I dropped it off to tell me I left my OBD port lock on. Stupid me. But then he criticizes me for locking it. “Why would you do that”? Really? Then he says, your vehicle is heavily modified. Okay, what the hell does that have to do with the fact my car would not start. I told them while camping that I had ZERO stuff running off my truck battery. Zero. It was just sitting there for two days. Totally annoying conversation.

 

[mcd_ovrlnd]

So dealer replaced my battery. Said it was shot. Real question is how I ended up there. Bad battery? Or is something negatively affecting it that I haven’t quite figured out yet. I don’t think it’s my BLUETTI Charger 2 because that has guardrails on it, only runs when the car is running and is smart in that it turns off if car is off. Maybe my remote kill switch has some parasitic drain but my TRD PRO is not my daily so I have had times where it sat for 6 days in the garage and never had a problem starting it. So it is a mystery at the moment.

 

[bird]

How does your remote killswitch work? If it's cellular, and you were in a place with bad signal, it may have been using more power trying to push a stronger signal, the same way your cellphone would.

Have you actually poked around your car with a voltmeter to confirm power isn't being drawn unexpectedly?

Given 4Runners aren't reporting issues with bad batteries, I think the first thing to rule out would be any aftermarket modifications. Maybe things aren't working quite the way you expected.

 

[Nodak]

well i have no mods (that affect electrical) on my 25 4R platinum. made it thru -30F and -20F temps in an un-insulated garage and un-heated garage without needing a trickle or charge at all. also sat outside at work from 530am to 430pm during those same cold snaps and never had any issues.

this will be my 2nd winter in ND with my 25.


on my 2014 i needed a trickle charge during the weekends sitting in the garage. but i suspect that was due to maybe an old battery.

batteries dont tend to last past 5 yrs in ND if they are subject to being outside in the brutal cold temps for extended periods of time

i guess the TLDR; as long as your 12v battery is in decent working order, the HV system should fire right up and charge the 12v battery.

killing your 12v will somewhat neuter your hybrid ability to start since it needs the 12v to run the electronics

only thing i can say is something outside of oem stuff is killing your battery.

 

[mcd_ovrlnd]

How does your remote killswitch work? If it's cellular, and you were in a place with bad signal, it may have been using more power trying to push a stronger signal, the same way your cellphone would.

Have you actually poked around your car with a voltmeter to confirm power isn't being drawn unexpectedly?

Given 4Runners aren't reporting issues with bad batteries, I think the first thing to rule out would be any aftermarket modifications. Maybe things aren't working quite the way you expected.

The kill switch is a remote (uses a fob).

How does your remote killswitch work? If it's cellular, and you were in a place with bad signal, it may have been using more power trying to push a stronger signal, the same way your cellphone would.

Have you actually poked around your car with a voltmeter to confirm power isn't being drawn unexpectedly?

Given 4Runners aren't reporting issues with bad batteries, I think the first thing to rule out would be any aftermarket modifications. Maybe things aren't working quite the way you expected.

I agree, something aftermarket isn’t working the way I expected. The head scratcher for me is I’ve had these things installed for 9+ months. So why now? You’d think it would have caused an issue before.

 

[Nodak]

The kill switch is a remote (uses a fob).

I agree, something aftermarket isn’t working the way I expected. The head scratcher for me is I’ve had these things installed for 9+ months. So why now? You’d think it would have caused an issue before.

unless the parasite draw is slowly draining past 10.5 volts repeatedly which will destroy a battery eventually but slowly.

typical resting state for oem parasite draw is around 20-30mv depending on what toyota is keeping alive, could be higher

anything above 75mv is going to be an issue long term wise

and if you are getting 250mv, that could cause a dead battery in about 2 weeks.

my son did this on his camry at college, he let it sit for about 2 weeks and the battery was completely dead cause he never drove it.

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