Ongoing drama- PCS malfuntion, trailer brake malfunction, check engine, etc.

Tundra team, I've been dealing with some drama for a week now and no resolve- looking for any information possible. truck was new mid June, has 4,000 miles on it.

Truck has been flawless, minus a blown fuse the third day I had it requiring towing to the dealer (fuse reader wasn't registering anything).

Wednesday last week:
So Wednesday last week I washed my truck in the am, drove to the dealership to have them look at some scratches from when i originally took delivery. They buffed out a spot on the a piller and the drivers side rear bumper. When i went to start the truck the dash was lit up like a Christmas tree. I grabbed my guy at the dealership and they said when they started the truck that's how it was and they assumed I knew.

I was told the diagnostic would take 2-3 hours and I didn't have that time, so they cleared the code and I went home.They told me it was most likely interference from my aftermarket parts, which didn't make sense since everything has been installed for a few thousand miles, only thing new were the method race wheels the Friday prior.

Truck drove the 20 miles home just fine, when i got home i noticed on of my led tail light bulbs was lose so i pulled off the light and snugged it up (vleds bulb).

Truck was worry free and fine until about 6Pm and the lights came on again, so I contacted the dealer and brought it in the next day.

Thursday:
In the AM I pulled the connector to the front sensor, unhooked the battery and looked everything over (remote start, light bars, radar detector, amp steps, topper lights, etc) and everything looked to be solidly connected and no issues.

I hooked the battery back up and everything worked like a charm for a few hours. When i went to start the truck to drive to the dealership everything was completely fine. They looked it over, made some Techstream changes for me (took 2hrs).

As I pulled out of the dealership lot, the lights all came back on again. They pulled it back into the service bay and ran a full diagnostics- another 2hours. My tech came out and asked me if the truck had almost been rolled recently. I explained to him no, and he told me about the trucks "blackbox" he said a hard turn was made to the left, then to the right, and the front end pitched drastically. I informed the tech that on Tuesday and Friday of the week prior I was driving a pretty bad two track to go fishing that was rutted out, but nothing insane that would cause me to think the truck almost rolled or flipped.

They once again cleared the error and got the truck running fine. I left the dealer ship around 1pm and drove home. I proceeded to drive another 10-20 miles before the light came on again.

This time I unplugged the sensor, battery and saw that the drivers side vled bulb was loose so I replaced it and let the truck sit overnight.

Friday:
Hooked everything back up in the am, ran errands around town (30 miles or so, multiple engine start/ stops) and at 2pm when we pulled out of the driveway for Ketchum all the lights came on again. We drove the truck to ketchum and I unplugged the sensor and battery overnight.

Saturday:
In the AM i hooked the battery and sensor back up, drove around town with no isses (2-3 start/ stops with the engine).

Around noon we left the house for a hike and about 30 seconds after starting the engine and driving off the lights came on again.

That evening I unplugged and reset everything again.

Sunday (today):
I hooked everything back up around 10am and we left for Boise- 180 miles or so. The system worked flawlessly no lights or warning, cruise control and radar for 140 miles to Mountain Home, ID. We stopped in MTN Home to get gas around 12pm and when i started the truck up the lights and warnings came on again........

The one weird thing I noticed on the 140+ mile drive where everything was working was the truck didn't seem to shift into 6th gear. My mileage was solid (averaged 16.6) but my rpm's were in the 3k range consistently and manually shifting the truck around didnt seem to change it. Normally for most of that drive the RPMS are in the low 2k range and only hunting on the hills or passing. I went to pass one truck on a hill and it was severely under-powered- I have passed on this hill hundreds of times with boats/ trailers behind me with zero issues- the truck just didnt want to rev high at all.

Anyone have any idea whats going on? I feel like the dealership keeps pointing to my aftermarket items, but isnt addressing the system itself or the sensors.

List of items on the truck:
Method NV 20x9's (installed 7.27)
275/65/20 toyo at 2's (installed 7.1, over 3k miles on them since)
Hypertech speedometer re-calibrator from my 16 tundra and 14 prior (installed 7.11)
AMP Steps (installed 7.20)
TRD Pro Grill (installed 7.11)
Fortin Evo one (installed 6.13)
Switch Pros 9100 and lights (installed 7.12)
Hardwire radar detector (installed 7.12)
Vleds license plate frame LED bar (installed mid July)

 

Sounds like it could be something electrical. It’ll be a pain, but try unplugging the aftermarket stuff one thing at a time until it stops doing it. Only way to narrow it down. What is the code for the CEL?

Maybe the hyper tech got a short in it. I had a bully dog hooked up to monitor stuff. The hdmi cable went bad one day and nothing worked on the dash while it was hooked up.

 

I’ve been wondering if it was the hypertech possibly, will try removing it tomorrow and resetting the battery.

Thanks!

 

^^ This. Start isolating electrical. Then double check the add a fuse for steps/9100.

 

Its likely the hypertech. Same kind of issues have been reported on tacomas running them.

 

When I saw Hypertech,
I thought “ thats it, yep”

Awaiting outcome.
Hope you get it figured out

 

I still have mine in the box as well. Not worth the headache.

 

Talked to hypertech this am, they are working on a new model for the 18/19’s. Most likely my issue.


In other news my truck seems to be working fine this am even after having the lights on yesterday..... with no battery reset.

 

I had a very similar experience, but it turned out to be a blown reverse light fuse. I had replaced the reverse bulbs with LEDs and one of them was blown and popped the fuse, and apparently it's the same circuit as the neutral safety switch. Once I replaced that fuse and popped the incandescent bulbs back in, all was well. I've since replaced the bulbs with higher-grade LEDs and haven't had a problem.

 

where was that fuse, hood or kick panel?

 

I think it was kick panel, labelled BK/UP LP

 

Everything was back working fine this am before and after hypertech de install.

The one consistent theme I am seeing is opening and closing the tailgate- whenever I do that after a reset it seems to cause the issue. Could be completely unrelated, but have noticed it...

 

ABS sensor ?

 

That’s what it starting to look like reading more and more into it

 

Hopefully not jinxing myself here, but i haven’t had the lights come back on since yesterday. I had a stack or ground wires going to my main ground on the drivers side engine bay (due to switch pros mounting). After doing some reading I thought I better try moving my ground around.

I unbolted my switch pros distribution block and moved it to the front of the engine bay. I sanded down a hole in the sheet metal to remove the paint and put a bolt, nut snd washer in there and bolted most of the grounds to that. One of the grounds popped off during instal (sticking up in the photo) so I routed that to the main ground along with my amp side steps due to length and everything seems to work flawlessly now.

Please excuse the shit wiring job, it’s ugly!

 

that is a messy wire job. haha
more times than not a messy ground can cause all sorts of things.

not sure what it calls for in automotive but on aircraft we wont put that many things on the same ground stud.

look into a ground block or similar to clean all that up. it will save you lots of grief.

 

Install another block like you have for the positive wire but make it only for the ground. That will ensure you have proper grounding for the equipment and will also clean up the wiring job. Use black crimp connectors for gnd and red for pos. Color coding is key for anyone who will be servicing the vehicle and the next owner.

 

Already tidied it up while on a call. Everything was heat shrunk, prongs added to the panel. Need to hunt down a negative distro block though....

Hopefully no one ever services this stuff and it definitely wont be installed for the next owner!

 

Had a hyper tech on my dodge when had it, truck started running like crap. dying as I was in traffic, pulled off side road toss the hypertech in the trash never had another issue

 

Update- truck was fine for 3 days leading up to my appointment with the dealer.
Took it through the car wash and all the lights came back on. Dropped it off at the dealer for 2 weeks while in Greece with the wife.
- dealership started it the next day and lights/ codes were cleared.
- put 300 miles on the truck trying to get it to activate again, no luck
- sprayed it with water, no issues

Picked it up 3 days ago, drove 20 minutes, took it through my local car wash
- 2 hours later i drove it from my house downtown to my gym (park in parking garage) and worked out for an hour
- left gym/ parking garage and all the lights came on
- parked truck overnight

Next day:
-Woke up and check engine light on, no pcs light or abs light- cruise control not working
-Called dealership, they had me run it through the carwash and bring it in
- washed truck and lights came on instantly, usually there has been a 20m-few hour delay
- left truck with them for 5 hours

Toyota:
- ABS, check engine and PCS/ towing sensors all checked and tested thoroughly (sprayed with high pressure hose to check for leaks)
- Contacted Toyota directly, they are thinking I have a lose connection somewhere, a ground that is shorting out, or a nicked wire somewhere in the system
- Dealership believes that water is getting into the firewall on either side after going through the airdry at the carwash and causing a short, either on a slightly cut wire or internal exposed ground/ power

They want the truck for 5-7+ hours at $140 an hour to go through all the aftermarket items and check them 1 by 1 for the root of the problem. If they dont end being the problem I will be reimbursed from Toyota.

I told them no way, I can pull everything aftermarket off of power and ground and do that diagnostic myself- remove remote start, FRAC system, unhook switch pros, amps and remote starter from power and ground and work backwards.

Whats so bizarre is that this issue just came up out of no where, nothing electrical had been done to the vehicle in a few weeks- only thing that was installed within a few days of all these issues were the new wheels.

 

Some wiring can jar loose by bumps on the road. Hopefully you can find it by unhooking everything and trying 1 thing at a time.

 

I have a new 2021 base sr5 2wd 1800 miles I've had four different trailers hooked to my truck every one has had the same symptoms as yours.
From day one my truck has been doing as you have described.
The dealership replaced the bcm I didn't get out of the parking lot.

Curious did you ever get your issue resolved?

 

I had blown some fuse, can’t remember which one