ABS/Battery Startup Help

[ewrk1989]

Good morning, All. Need some advice on how to diagnose/proceed with the following issue.

2011 Land Cruiser would not start this morning. Doors unlocked electronically like normal, sat down, foot on brake, press start, got about a half second of the normal steering wheel tilt and then everything cut out. Engine did not try to start/turn over, and check engine weakly lit up.

Tried to disconnect and reconnect battery cables but that did not help. Battery light did come on after that though.

When I was in the engine compartment I noticed a fluttering valve sound coming from the ABS/master brake cylinder area. Strange rubber/sulfur smell too. Fluttering sound cuts out when battery is disconnected, but comes back in when reconnected.

Trying to figure out if the battery is bad (TrueStart installed by a dealer in July 2017 and ~55k miles ago) or if there is something wrong with the ABS/brake system and that was fluttering all night thus draining the battery. Sort of a chicken vs. egg question. I'm thinking possibly if the battery cut out during startup this morning then maybe the solenoid flutter is just because of some weird aborted startup software/circuitry stuff and might reset after the car runs.

Could call for assistance and get the car jump-started but wouldn't know how to proceed from there to say what the root cause was. A little fewer than 5 years on an OEM battery with a 7-year warranty seems suspicious! This is my first push-button start vehicle so I don't know if they will/won't try to turn over when battery voltage is low.

Thanks,
Eric

 

[Clyde S Dale]

Good morning, All. Need some advice on how to diagnose/proceed with the following issue.

2011 Land Cruiser would not start this morning. Doors unlocked electronically like normal, sat down, foot on brake, press start, got about a half second of the normal steering wheel tilt and then everything cut out. Engine did not try to start/turn over, and check engine weakly lit up.

Tried to disconnect and reconnect battery cables but that did not help. Battery light did come on after that though.

When I was in the engine compartment I noticed a fluttering valve sound coming from the ABS/master brake cylinder area. Strange rubber/sulfur smell too. Fluttering sound cuts out when battery is disconnected, but comes back in when reconnected.

Trying to figure out if the battery is bad (TrueStart installed by a dealer in July 2017 and ~55k miles ago) or if there is something wrong with the ABS/brake system and that was fluttering all night thus draining the battery. Sort of a chicken vs. egg question. I'm thinking possibly if the battery cut out during startup this morning then maybe the solenoid flutter is just because of some weird aborted startup software/circuitry stuff and might reset after the car runs.

Could call for assistance and get the car jump-started but wouldn't know how to proceed from there to say what the root cause was. A little fewer than 5 years on an OEM battery with a 7-year warranty seems suspicious! This is my first push-button start vehicle so I don't know if they will/won't try to turn over when battery voltage is low.

Thanks,
Eric

I would suspect the battery. Do you have a way to check the actual voltage at the battery?

 

[ewrk1989]

Thanks for the input, and yes right now my multimeter says 12.47V so certainly appears low voltage. Can't obviously get a voltage while on right now but in the past the voltage on the dash would read right around the 14V mark so that always seemed correct.

 

[Sandroad]

I agree about the battery or terminal corrosion being the first suspect. Do more than just disconnect and reconnect the cables (both); give them a good cleaning job. If you do end up jump starting it and that works, then it’s probably new battery time. 5 years is pretty good for a battery in many cases, warranty notwithstanding.

 

[cboyd]

5 years old on a TrueStart is probably about the life. I live in New England and can only get 3 years out of them.

I’d swap that for an X2 Northstar, which I’m planning to do on my next starting battery.

I run dual of them in my 100 without issues.

 

[bloc]

There is little reason for a typical user to run anything other than flooded-cell batteries. A friend of mine went through two brand new toyota batteries before the third was finally a good one, so they are not immune to issues. After all they are not the same manufacturer as the original equipment that came in the truck, which as far as I know is only available in Japan. I’d consider 5 years on a tru-start acceptable, and if you have the receipt you should get some prorate out of the replacement.

Plus what others said about verifying terminal health and such. Almost 12.5v isn’t super low, but isn’t where I’d want it either. The ABS sounds could very well be low system voltage.