CEL will not illuminate with known malfunction codes

My son bought a 2006 Tundra V8 4.7L a few weeks ago and when he took it in to emissions CEL wouldn’t light up with key in on position. Immediate fail so I suspect that the instrument cluster wiring had been tampered with. Took the instrument panel apart, following excellent procedures I gleaned from this forum, and found a single wire cut on the left hand bundle. How can I check if this is indeed the wire for the CEL. My initial thought was to go to dealership and have them check out the problem not knowing how in-depth the fix may be. Any thoughts on this matter. Thanks in advance

 

Just get yourself a butt connector and reconnect the wire.

This is, unfortunately pretty common for crooked people to either trade in their car or the shady dealer/car curbers will do the same.

Save yourself a trip to the dealer, who will charge you a fortune.

 

Not familiar with a butt connector. Also there is no wire coming out of the pin connector

 

https://www.tundras.com/threads/ultimate-tundra-wiring-diagrams-collection.81448/

 

Ah, I was under the impression that you found a clipped wire.

A butt connector is the standard connector you use for installations and repairs in vehicle wiring.

did you look for electrical tape over the light?

 

The MIL should be part of the 40 pin connector C5 18....the Violet(purple) w/White tracer.
The only white I see is the one for Memory Seat ECU....C5 pin 30.
Has that white wire have a tracer wire ?





Also, if you have a volt ohm meter or equivalent tester, turn key to IGN ON only and at same time see if there is 12vdc at C5 pin 18.

 

Thanks so much Bubba

 

ZappBranigan
The no light situation was bugging me so much that I removed the instrument cluster, removed the back and circuit board, removed all needles and low and behold there was black electrical tape stuffed into the CEL and tpms boxes. We’re now determining if there is any recourse for us or we just eat it. Any suggestions on reassembling the gauges

 

If you wish to get someones attention, you need to put an @ sign before the first letter of their name as you type it to alert them. Otherwise you hope they drop by.

@ZappBrannigan

Uploading a picture of what all you've done to instrument panel might help.

 

Covering the CEL is illegal in most states. Where did you buy the truck from?

 

Vero Beach, FL

 

Sorry, I meant from a private party or a dealership?

 

From a used car dealership that bought it from another dealer through an auction.

 

That's on the dealer

 

Yeah that sounds more like I would expect in this scenario.

As for your legal recourse, people here will tell you that you have recourse on the dealer. The reality of it is that it’s a very difficult thing to prove in court and odds are they will be willing to shovel money into the attorney furnace at a higher rate than you would be willing to. They know that as well, as litigation won’t be terribly new to them. How would you prove that the selling dealer specifically covered those lights? Often times, the person trading in the car does this, then a dealer buys it from auction unknowingly selling the vehicle with disabled lights.

Another scenario is, a dealer buys the vehicle or takes it on trade and buried themselves in it. Then they tape the lights and run it through the auction. Now, depending on the auction there may be pictures of the dash but they only keep them for so long and will only comply with a subpoena. Regardless, you can see how this goes.

that said, you do have some leverage here. the dealer will have to a license and the licensing body of your state along with the governing body will absolutely want to hear about this. In Hawaii this would be RICO, and the DCCA. Other states have their equivalents.

Find out what they are, and find out what they suggest, but do so after confronting the selling dealer with this information and asking them (nicely) to fix it. They will feign ignorance and tell you it’s your problem but the reality is they are business, and sometimes businesses have to eat a loss for consumer protection. Given that a vehicle is the second most expensive, and in a lot of cases, most expensive item a person will ever purchase the governing bodies tend to want protect consumers in that industry. Don’t feel about it, even if they really didn’t know. (Odds are they didn’t) but they should be responsible for it either way. If they are a legitimate business and not a fly by night operation they will want to protect their image. Slandering them all over internet with something like that could be devastating for sales and they should know that.

So, as for your next question let’s see what you have taken apart and we can work on how to reassemble it. I hope you took pictures of what you found, if not, document everything with photos. Everything.

 

Yes I took plenty of photos showing the tape in both enclosures. Like you said it would be difficult to prove they did it. They bought it from another dealer who got it at auction. We’ll discuss the situation with them and hope for some assistance with fixing the evaporation system problem that someone was trying to cover up. Lawyering up was never an option as the costs would probably outweigh what it would cost to fix the problem. We will be contacting the consumer protection agency in Florida to report this incident and see if they can be of assistance. IRT the instrument cluster, I think I have reset the needles correctly following another post on this forum. My thanks to all those who responded to my post and provided sound advice.

 

Good luck and please keep us posted on the journey and results.