4Runner Stalled Off-Road

Hi All,

So I had some odd things happen today while running a trail. The first item was the head unit reset maybe 3-4 times but the odd part was it was like the car shut itself down but didn’t because I was still driving. The cluster went off and the welcome message appeared on the head-unit . Later on in the trip I turned the 4R off when we got to the top of the ridge for lunch and it would not turn back on for a minute or so.

The last issue that occurred I was preparing for a decent up the hill and the 4R actually stalled once I switched from 4H to 4L and turned on multi terrain mode and it stalled. The lights on the dash and audio were all still on. Pressed the ignition and it started right up was fine after that. Car drove home perfectly fine. Zero acceleration issues or odd shifts. Zero engine codes or anything like that either.

Has anyone ever heard of anything like this? Very weird. Had no issues with this truck in the 23,000 miles of its life.

Thanks!

 

Make sure your battery connections are tight.

 

^along with this, make sure the battery voltage is still over 12.3v.

Modern vehicles start behaving oddly when the batteries start to go.

not saying this is the problem; but I like to start with the simple/ cheap stuff

 

Hopefully you weren't up by Salt River Canyon! Those are sacred grounds.. lucky if you don't get struck by lightning there! Start by checking electrical connections, battery connections, and voltage as stated above, maybe a ground issue of sorts too. Good luck

 

My did that while driving at night. Hit a bump and everything shuts off and back on. You have a loose battery cable. Mine was the negative terminal. I run an Optima battery and the negative doesn't want to tighten enough without twisting it. I saw Dorman makes a negative Toyota terminal soit might a issue over time.

 

Thanks for the input everyone I will be testing the battery and checking all of electrical connections and connections on the battery terminals today! Much appreciated.

 

Haha we were running Pucker Ridge in Superior. When the truck decided not turn back on we were just at the top of the last big hill climb that takes you to 4600 ft. I was like this is not happening right here lol.

 

It seems very unusual for only a 2 year old 4R to be having electrical issues.

 

The symptoms youre describing are classic (4Runner) battery connection issues.

When you go to check the connections, disconnect both terminal connections, little wire brush action to clean the terminal and connectors, then give a good tap to get them as low on the post as possible. Tighten both the cross bolt and the bolt on the cable itself (they get loose).

 

Update:

So per all of the recommendations I checked the terminals on the battery first and they were good. I then checked the voltage on the battery using my OBD scanner which measured 11.6 V. I then used the multimeter to double check the scanner and got the same 11.6V. The scanner has a battery test feature which determines if the battery is in poor, medium or good health. Ran the test and got a poor health reading. The next test I drove the car around a bit then checked the voltage and got 13.3V with the car on after driving. Last test I ran was underload. Disconnected the EFI fuse so we could test the battery with the car trying to start and we got 9.4-9.6 on the 3 tries we did this which from what I read anything under 10 is bad. So I ended up replacing the battery!

I ran through every single fuse in the engine bay and interior and made sure they were all in good shape, clean and were nice and tight. I double checked where I had my switch panel plugged into as well as my Morimoto lights. I purposely ran them into the cabin fuse panel and jumped them to non important fuses. The Morimoto's are connected to the KDSS fuse which my 4R doesn't have but the fuse is hot when the ignition is on allowing the DRL's to be on. The switch panel is plugged into the interior 12V fuse so all good there.

Appreciate everyone's suggestions!
Thank you

 

Glad it was just the simple fix I thought it was!
Love it when that happens

 

Me too! Thank you for the suggestion again!