I have had a recurrent problem for over a year now. It first appeared after I had left the car undriven outside for 3 weeks in January with at one point temperatures as low as -30.
When we came back from our trip the battery light turned on ans after driving a few miles it went off.
A few months later the light shows up again, but this time it's on for a minute or two turns off for 2-3 min comes back on again. At one point it was on all the time, I was told the battery was bad, replaced the battery, the light still came back on. Then after driving several hundreds of miles, it came off. Took it to Toyota for servicing, mentioned the problem and they said the alternator was bad. The light eventually didn't show up again, but about 5 months later the light came back on and off, the light for the airbag did the same thing, while having the battery light going off and on, I could notice the dashboard lights, the radio lights would dim and come back to normal, the air vent would be slower and go back to normal speed...
Other symptom I noticed is that when I bought the car from the dealership it didn't have a cruise control, so I had them install one. The CC works good, but when I turn off the airvent the cruise control shuts off. I don't know if all this is related or not.
Would this truly be an alternator problem, or could this be the wiring that is bad?
When we came back from our trip the battery light turned on ans after driving a few miles it went off.
A few months later the light shows up again, but this time it's on for a minute or two turns off for 2-3 min comes back on again. At one point it was on all the time, I was told the battery was bad, replaced the battery, the light still came back on. Then after driving several hundreds of miles, it came off. Took it to Toyota for servicing, mentioned the problem and they said the alternator was bad. The light eventually didn't show up again, but about 5 months later the light came back on and off, the light for the airbag did the same thing, while having the battery light going off and on, I could notice the dashboard lights, the radio lights would dim and come back to normal, the air vent would be slower and go back to normal speed...
Other symptom I noticed is that when I bought the car from the dealership it didn't have a cruise control, so I had them install one. The CC works good, but when I turn off the airvent the cruise control shuts off. I don't know if all this is related or not.
Would this truly be an alternator problem, or could this be the wiring that is bad?
Feb 19, 2010 at 3:47 PM
