Door ajar light

My rear passenger door always shows as open. This occurred after there was an altercation in my vehicle and it has appeared this way ever since. I've replaced the switch itself with no change in behavior. I've reset the ECU-B via fuse. The behavior is intermittent and will sometimes stop when the front passenger door is slammed or if i go over a bump hard enough but it won't consistently stay off. Any ideas?

 

Did the altercation involve force being applied to the the door itself while it was closed? Or for that matter, force while it was opened?

If the switch itself is verified good, maybe the door itself is slightly bent out of shape? That could prevent the switch from getting pushed in all the way. The easy way to get around that temporarily is to tape a little spacer onto the door where the switch lands.

 

That's what I was thinking. If new switch that works at least some of the time, there must be a mating geometry problem.

 

It happened when it was open. Manually depressing the switch doesn't cause it to show the door being closed unfortunately.

 

Does pressing the switch make the rear dome light go out or the rear door courtesy lights?

 

No it does not

 

Sounds like a bad switch.

 

op said it was a new switch…. Who knows then. Not much info on the nature of the damage. Suppose it could be anything

 

Yeah, that's what's odd about the behavior. There must be other wiring damage - the good switch is spliced onto a wire that got a break elsewhere.

 

There is no visible damage to the car or the door. Is there some kind of wiring diagram i can use to find out where that wire travels through the car or what sensor it connects to?

 

Some of those switches ground through the attachment/mounting bolt. Is there any noticeable corrosion on the attachment bolt?

 

This switch does ground through the attachment bolt and there is no noticeable corrosion. I've used the bolt from the other door which works perfectly well and it still doesn't work. I've also attempting to manually ground the connector with a paper clip with little luck.

 

When is a door not a door?

 

Definitely a head scratcher.

 

@GermanShepherdDude, I'm hoping I can help you out here. What model year/trim is your 4Runner? We need to know this in order to help. Attached is the 2016MY and 2020MY Factory diagrams for the door courtesy switch circuits. They are essentially wired the same, but some wire colors/connectors differ based on production year. Your courtesy light is always on because somewhere that wire is being grounded. Grounding the switch won't turn the light off because it is already being supplied with a constant ground source. When the door is closed, the switch plunger is pushed in and interrupts the ground. Most Toyota "function" circuits are negatively switched in this way.



Unfortunately you are going to need to do some minor disassembly to find where the damage to the harness is. My guess is if your vehicle was hit on the side, the damage is confined to somewhere in the passenger side floor/body harness. Your dash circuit is probably fine.

The first step to any electrical trouble shooting is having a decent multimeter, and to DISCONNECT THE POWER SOURCE. I repeat DISCONNECT THE BATTERY.

You will need to pull the door sill trim panels and kick panel on the passenger side. All are held in by clips with the exception of the plastic nut on the kick panel you will need to unscrew before pulling to release the clips. This shows the driver side, but it is the same for the passenger. You will notice that the floor/body harness runs underneath these panels and mates to the dash in the kick panel area.




Do a visual inspection of the harness. Any damage to the harness sheathing should be pretty evident as it is wrapped first in split conduit, and then taped over. If you can see the damage, you need to locate the correct wire and repair it. This is why you need to have a multimeter to confirm you are fixing the correct circuit if more than one wire in the same color is damaged. Do you have any other electrical issues? If you can't see any obvious damage, we are going to have to do a bit more in depth trouble shooting.

On the passenger side, there should only be one large "Lever style" connector (FN1 for 2010-19MY) that connects the Passenger floor harness to the main dash harness. This is where you will want to start checking connections. To detach FN1, you will notice a small tab in the black plastic lever. Press down on the the tab while pulling the lever out toward you to disconnect it.


You need to pull the door switch from the rear passenger side so you can have direct access to the single pin connector N7. Set your meter to Ohms to test continuity and with one probe in connector N7, touch the other probe to the bolt of the ground splice connector WITH FN1 DISCONNECTED. If you have continuity, that will tell you 100% that the floor harness is suspect and is grounding to the body. If you don't have continuity, the issue is in the dash harness (Highly unlikely). Test this out, and report back with the findings and we can figure it out from there.

-Old Red

 

This is fantastic information. It's a 2018 TRD PRO. I'll look into this and let you know how it goes either way!

 

I was able to solve it using this information! I have AMP research running boards that were installed before i purchased the car. The issue was that they spliced the running board wire into the door switch wire but the running board wire got pinched by the plastic panel. I assume during the nonsense that was happening in my vehicle I removed the splice and boom the light went off and it operates normally. Thank you so much for the assistance!!! Thanks @Old Red

 

Awesome! Glad it was something simple.

 

I love a happy ending.

 

Hi Red. Thanks for your long post above, which is nothing short of heroic.

I have a pdf of the wiring diagram labeled EM1430U which I think is from 2010, but I’m not sure. Do you have a source for a pdf of the 2020 diagram?

 

Vehicle altercations are the worst.