'01 Power Locks and Battery Drain

Ayo,

Last week I bought a new to me 01 AC. Truck seems pretty good other than some electrical gremlins, the main one being that the power locks instantly unlock themselves after being locked. This happens whether I attempted to lock them electronically or manually. There is also a slow battery drain on the truck where it is stone cold dead if it sits for a couple of days. I would imagine there is a high chance these issues are related. So, folks that know more about cars than me, where do I start?

 

On Toyota’s, when you attempt to lock the door with the door open, it will unlock immediately. Think the feature is meant to keep you from locking your keys in the truck. Perhaps your door switch is shorted or has corrosion in the contacts. Is the dome light functional? Does the door open dash light stay illuminated when your close the door?

 

So being new I'll first off say that you better check your timing belt (if v8) if you don't know history and check out your lower ball joints.

As far as your lock issue I know that some Toyotas will not let you lock the doors with the inside door lock button if the ignition is on and the door is open.

I would definitely be suspect of a faulting out aftermarket alarm. Do you have any sort of remote that came with the truck? If not I'd be looking under the dash for an oddly placed black box with wires going in and out.

If you cannot find your battery drain you can do a parasitic draw test with a multimeter. Lots of info online doing that. Basically read the amperage being pulled from your battery and then pull out each fuse one at a time and see which fuse kills the battery draw.

@KNABORES beat me by a minute to some of this but I'm leaving it in there.

 

I did not know that about Toyotas, I tried to manually lock with the key and door closed but can't seem to figure that out either. All lights, windows, radio, etc work as they should. Once I get life back in the truck I will see if the door switch is working.

 

Checking the belt was supposed to be top priority for my off day tomorrow. Carfax and the Toyota Owners website has no meaningful service records for me so I'll pop the cover off and see. I have no remote for the truck, just a single key. The passenger door will lock with the key on the outside, but the drivers door only turns in the unlock direction, will hit it with some WD-40 to see if it frees up.

 

I know if you put the key in the door and twist it to unlock 2 times it will electronically unlock the passenger door and when you lock it will electronically lock the passenger door as well. Maybe whatever switch controls the unlocking of the passenger door is stuck pushed in causing the doors to immediately unlock after locking? That could also be causing the battery drain issue. That switch would probably be inside the door latch mechanism so may be hard to diagnose.

 

Beat me to it!

So, a couple of things.

First, make sure nothing is plugged into the ODBII port.

Second, look under the dash for traces of an aftermarket alarm take pics up under the dash between the fuse box and the center console if you don't know what to look for (extra often-colorful wires, black or blue plastic boxes, etc.), and check around the driver kick panel too for anything "extra" stuffed in. If there is one, and a previous owner unplugged it, but didn't remove the door lock relays (for example), something could be firing off. Or even if plugged in still, aftermarket alarms tend to die slowly or catastrophically with time, and cause bullshit electrical issues, starting probs, parasitic draw, lock/window probs and folks rarely think to look. Something as stupid as an aftermarket brake controller or inverter can cause draw, though. So can GPS trackers like Snitch and Scout trackers.

Third, test for parasitic draw. Some draw is normal. The video in this reply will help you out with the process, it's really simple. With fuse unplugging, start in the cab, and once you rule it out as anything tied to the in-cab fuse box, work your way to the engine bay fuse/relay box.

Come back and reply when you get through these, the info will help us help you more easily.