Truck electrical fails every 15 seconds or so on freeway

Out of nowhere, at 74600, I was in the freeway at about 65-70, and the electrical system just went dead; all needles dropped toward zero, the truck started coasting, and it lasts about 2 seconds, then everything is back up and running. 10-15 seconds later- it happens again, and again, and again. Pull off and it idles fine. Stopped and restarted the engine with no problem.

Charging system still pegged at 14v charging with engine on.

No warning lights, no messages. What gives?

 

Original battery?

 

I would definitely get a load test done on the battery. If it's older that 2 to 2.5 years old, it's needing a replacement anyway. Hopefully that is all it is. Also make sure your battery cables are nice and tight.

 

Could be ignition switch or rodent damage. Do you adjust column a lot or have auto adjusted column? Frequent adjustment can damage the wires.

 

You may also have a loose ignition fuse, sometimes I pull mine out if going away for a bit.

 

Cool idea to remove the fuse. I should do that and put it in the slot marked 500KV cat protection circuit.

 

Yeah, you know if you are going to park at the airport in El Paso, Philly, or Baltimore for ten days or similar and want to have a truck when you get back it's cheap and simple insurance.

 

I wouldn't think the battery if the alternator is functioning correctly. But who knows nowadays. Ignition switch bad wire or contact sounds more realistic. Have you done any work to the truck in recent weeks before this happened? Even the smallest thing if you can think of anything coukd be a potential point of interest to look at. Like did you wash your engine bay previously, did you drive through a puddle, change a light out inside the truck.

 

Whatever is found, please post it up for the next folks to reference. TIA!

 

Update- scraped corrosion of the neg terminal and unplugged the Pioneer HU from the OBD port.
No issues.

Original battery.

Thanks for the suggestions!

 

This happened to me on an old Accord I had; traveling highway speeds and literally car would go dead and all gauges would zero out. It would start back on its own initially, but then I would have to coast to a stop and restart it. Replaced the ignition switch and it never happened again in the years that I owned it. Hopefully yours is as easy of a fix

 

Plugged OBD back in and drove home 60mi without incident. I’m thinking the battery is gone and the corrosion got the better of it today.
I’ll dig around and see what batteries folks are hailing as bombproof.

Thanks again everyone!

 

This sounds like a bad ground issue to me.

A new battery probably wouldn’t hurt but with the alternator running and charging electrical power is being pushed into the system. If the battery is bad it just won’t store this power as well.

Can you isolate more of the circuits that are cutting out? Obviously the gauges? Radio? AC controls? Lights?

Everything went dark and I mean everything? If so main ground is definitely the place to start

 

Had a shorted OEM battery on mine last year. Should note here… there seem to be a growing number of defective batteries out there. My buddy has replaced two batteries that tested bad at 8 months of service on a 5-year battery.

 

I’ve had 2 Toyota batteries die at 1-1.5 years each, seemingly from the batteries leaking/losing electrolyte, which also caused bad corrosion issues on both terminals. I’ve since swapped to new terminals and an AGM sealed battery and so far so good.

 

I think I have to agree with the assessment of a bad ground.

To be clear: the truck was going D-E-A-D… literally 2 second intervals of being in a dark truck, coasting, and then it would all pick back up.

I pulled over and popped the hood with the engine running. There was significant corrosion on the negative battery terminal and clamp, which I scraped away. I grabbed the negative cable and twisted aggressively, and it seemed tight and solid.
On an illogical whim, I pulled the OBD lead that runs to my aftermarket HU.
I sat in the lot I pulled into with the throttle open at about 2500rpm for 30 seconds to see if that was a cause, but everything ran smoothly.
I did notice that the battery gauge was at 14…. Below its normal position at or above 15v.
Finally, I killed the engine and started it back up twice, and everything was fine.

I drove the rest of the way, about 40 more miles and parked. Six hours later I returned and the truck started and ran fine. Halfway through my return trip I plugged the OBD lead back in and that caused no issues.

My guess is that the negative terminal was corroded and I didn’t have a solid ground.

The battery is 5 years old, original factory battery. No reason to suspect it’s defective but it’s getting aged. I’ll probably get it load tested.

 

Remember your battery is just for starting the truck. Once it starts the alternator takes over. If your alternator fails it will run off battery power.

 

The battery also acts as a filter. Fading batteries seem to cause odd gremlins on Toyotas. Even though the do their primary job well enough.

 

My battery had no external signs of failure, it just flickered everything for 15-20 miles then it was done, as the OP described. O’Reillys ran the full cycle test and battery was done, unchargeable. Got their cheapo new one and zero issues. Curious @TRDFerguson why you went with a deep cycle battery versus a normal cranking battery?

 

Partially because I am a lumenz whore and keep adding lights and wanted some extra electrons available, but mostly because standard wet/flooded batteries don’t seem to do well in the extreme heat here. I’d really like to get 4-5 years out of this AGM vs the almost-two that I’ve been seeing.

 

^^^ This. You could start the truck, remove your battery and in theory, as long as you kept gas in it, keep the engine running indefinitely without issue. I HIGHLY doubt it’s the battery. I have seen bad batteries cause a parasitic drain on the system and cause some wacky electrical issues, but nothing like what you’re experiencing.