Once in a while, say 2% of starts, the 4x4 light on the dash blinks. After I drive a half mile or so, I pull over, cut the engine, and restart. This seems to cure the blinking. What is this? It's a 2009 model.
4x4 lights blinks
- Thread starter damdifino
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If you mean the CDL, yeah that's common. Despite hearing that exercising the center diff lock and/or 4WD helps, mine seems to light up on occasion when temps are 40-50F, whether or not I've recently exercised it. It happened to me in Breckenridge last year on Saturday morning, and I'd wheeled Peak 10 on Friday night and exercised 4Lo and the CDL, for instance. If the 4Lo light is coming on that would be a different problem though.
Yes sadly this is common. I think the transfer case actuator is failing some sort of self-test on cold start. Probably a bad position sensor reading or something. Once the fluid warms up a bit you can restart your rig and it's fine though so maybe something really is stuck (since restarting the truck cold won't fix it). When this happens 4Lo won't even try to engage nor will the center diff lock. I have a video of this the last time it happened, walking through what doesn't work... showed it to my dealer and they noted it in my file but couldn't reproduce. Also maybe worth noting it first happened to me around 50k miles with Toyota factory transfer case fluid, and it's happened since I changed out the fluid as well.
- Thread starter
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Thanks for that. You're probably right. I've never used the center diff because this beast goes EVERYWHERE without. I mean Hell's Revenge, Black Bear, Engineer, South Padre Island, Big Bend, etc. Scores of trails. I'll check it out.