Flashing Center Diff Lock Light 200 Series (2 Viewers)

[Recon Aircrew]

Amazing coincidence I guess - Noticed odd vehicle behavior with my '13 in steering and power while backing down and out of the driveway especially when turning. Seemed like it wanted to seize up. Drove to work fine and then the same type of slowing while turning and parking in the parking garage. Noticed CDL light on and could not turn it off with the button-switch. Came out 12 hours later after work - problem resolved. Not a cool day in South Texas. Really odd. Never used the diff lock feature ever. Thoughts? Thanks!

 

[Fisher23]

Sometime mine would clear just turning it on and off, but one or two times I had to clear the evap code. It would not come in or out of diff lock when that code was there.

 

[Hussain]

Perhaps the connection is protected from getting rained on from above, and when driving forward most of the water passes underneath the transfer case?

Have you tried to spary the connection with electronic insulator sealer, this might fix the issue

 

[SanJuanGX]

Well, faaaaack - my 15 200 is stuck in 4 low. CDL light blinking. Tried disconnecting the battery, nada. Tried every combo of starting, stopping, shutting down, turning on, going off road, staying on pavement, going straight, forward & backward, figure 8's, neutral, park...park, neutral...you name it - nothing.

We've been having the blinking CDL light issue sporadicly for about a year now or since about 75k miles - mostly just annoying because as others have mentioned, it wipes out the cruise control, and we've experienced that it will also NOT allow us to shift INto 4low if CDL is blinking. This time it did, but now it wont let me shift back out.

Living where we live - we're off road all the time - and thus "exercise" all the buttons & bull**** regularly, and are in 4 lo often.

Guess I'm gonna put this thing on a trailer & take to the dealer...they absolutely suck. I'm gonna lose my s*** if I haul this thing all the way down there and it self corrects while on the trailer.

Is there some kinda hack that someone is privy too to get this thing back outta low, so I can at least drive it?

Anyone in need of a fully pimped - fully locked up - 200? I'll give ya a smokin deal. Luxury rock crawler? Anyone?

 

[linuxgod]

Well, faaaaack - my 15 200 is stuck in 4 low. CDL light blinking. Tried disconnecting the battery, nada. Tried every combo of starting, stopping, shutting down, turning on, going off road, staying on pavement, going straight, forward & backward, figure 8's, neutral, park...park, neutral...you name it - nothing.

We've been having the blinking CDL light issue sporadicly for about a year now or since about 75k miles - mostly just annoying because as others have mentioned, it wipes out the cruise control, and we've experienced that it will also NOT allow us to shift INto 4low if CDL is blinking. This time it did, but now it wont let me shift back out.

Living where we live - we're off road all the time - and thus "exercise" all the buttons & bulls*** regularly, and are in 4 lo often.

Guess I'm gonna put this thing on a trailer & take to the dealer...they absolutely suck. I'm gonna lose my s*** if I haul this thing all the way down there and it self corrects while on the trailer.

Is there some kinda hack that someone is privy too to get this thing back outta low, so I can at least drive it?

Anyone in need of a fully pimped - fully locked up - 200? I'll give ya a smokin deal. Luxury rock crawler? Anyone?

@TeCKis300 posted instructions on how to remove and clean the actuator motor. If you're very handy you might give that a shot, as I suspect it's having a problem detecting the actuator position which is why it goes into stupid flashing mode.

I had this issue once but ultimately once the transfer case warmed up and I shut off and restarted the truck once or twice I was able to get it to clunk out of low range by reversing 1-2'.

The CDL is particularly annoying, but I know this is worse. I had no issues with the CDL for almost a year, and yet as soon as I got into the mountains in CO I had issues with it engaging.

BTW no idea how far the dealer is but if it's not that far you *could* drive there in 4Lo. You can use 4Lo on pavement, just not the CDL. Of course you'll be doing 25mph tops and people will pass you like you're in a tractor...

 

[LCHardriver_02]

If you hook up the hay baler first, then you will be fine. People will then understand that you indeed drive a tractor. I'll be more entertaining on the drive back once the truck is back in 4-wheel Hi.

 

[linuxgod]

If you hook up the hay baler first, then you will be fine. People will then understand that you indeed drive a tractor. I'll be more entertaining on the drive back once the truck is back in 4-wheel Hi.

Don't feel weird for doing that with an LC either. Remember, even Lamborghini made a tractor

 

[SanJuanGX]

Un-freaking believable.

Got the truck & trailer all hooked up, got in the Cruiser to get it loaded (first start of the day), and low and behold, the CDL light is off. The Cruiser is of course in park & the Hi - low selector in in 4 hi as I left it last night. The cruiser in beeping at me with the 4lo light now blinking. I shift the damn thing into neutral, and it immediately disengages 4 low and shifts back to 4 hi. All is now normal.

What. The. F*&%.

Might be heading for the Jeep dealership.....

 

[tincan45]

+1 for taking the actuator apart. I think @TeCKis300 hit the nail on the head regarding this issue. The dealer will only want to replace the entire actuator assembly, so that might be an expensive and unnecessary endeavor.

 

[TeCKis300]

Sorry to hear you're having trouble with the selector. It's a giant middle finger when I couldn't reliably shift between hi/lo and engage the center locker on demand. Might as well drive a Highlander without those functioning.

The control actuator is electro-mechanical and it itself is sensitive to mechanical faults and temperature, particularly when combined with corrosion on electrical contacts. Even though you got it unstuck, you'll still want to get it repaired or replaced as it will continue to act up.

If you get into a bind again, I suspect some light taps from hammer/tool on the actuator housings might get it to respond again.

Transfer Case Tuneup and Fix

Transfer case actuator issues are not uncommon on the 200-series. Not much documented solutions other than exercising the mechanisms regularly. Here's my attempt to provide more information on where and what the actuator is, how to service the transfer case actuator motor, and potentially...

forum.ih8mud.com

 

[linuxgod]

+1 for taking the actuator apart. I think @TeCKis300 hit the nail on the head regarding this issue. The dealer will only want to replace the entire actuator assembly, so that might be an expensive and unnecessary endeavor.

The actuator is about $900 for a new one. Plus labor. Not sure the book rate but from reading others in the threads it sound like just for the actuator motor assembly expect the dealer will probably charge for 2-3 hours, give or take.

 

[TeCKis300]

The actuator is about $900 for a new one. Plus labor. Not sure the book rate but from reading others in the threads it sound like just for the actuator motor assembly expect the dealer will probably charge for 2-3 hours, give or take.

If I'm not incorrect, the tricky thing is that to replace the whole actuator by the FSM, requires dropping and dissembling of the transfer case. Because the actuator rods are retained internally. $$$$ and I'm not sure how many hours. A unnecessary tear town.

If the tech were smart, the only parts really required to be replaced are the electronic actuators that are housed in the plastic top and bottom covers of the actuator assembly. They can also replace the whole plastic "box" of the actuator and retain the existing actuation rods. Both methods require work below the actuator assembly which they may not want to do even though it saves probably 6+ hours of labor.

 

[linuxgod]

If I'm not incorrect, the tricky thing is that to replace the whole actuator by the FSM, requires dropping and dissembling of the transfer case. Because the actuator rods are retained internally. $$$$ and I'm not sure how many hours. A unnecessary tear town.

If the tech were smart, the only parts really required to be replaced are the electronic actuators that are housed in the plastic top and bottom covers of the actuator assembly. They can also replace the whole plastic "box" of the actuator and retain the existing actuation rods. Both methods require work below the actuator assembly which they may not want to do even though it saves probably 6+ hours of labor.

Ah true. Yes the assembly seems to include the rods but you likely could just swap the motor box off. This is what I saw: 36410-60113 - Genuine Toyota ACTUATOR ASSEMBLY, TRANS

 

[M1911]

I think if the dealership will replace just the actuator assembly I would consider myself lucky. I suspect many would insist on replacing the entire transfer case.

 

[Bunga]

I've had some weird behavior and restart or short roll fixed it every time. If you think this is annoying do NOT buy a jeep. In between the recalls, fires, part failures, you will wish you were back in Toyota land with simple annoyances.

 

[Yossarian]

Had the blinking diff lock light in the mountains a couple of weeks ago, and it went away after a short drive. It came on again last week, but went away on it's own. I have a service appointment for the seat belt recall, and this is on the list of items to look at.

 

[Tonytbts]

the CDL gremlin that you are experiencing occurs in 200’s throughout the world. I am in Australia and it was present in my 2015 model when I bought it in 2017. Occurred infrequently on cold starts, and would go away once the transmission got hot. Like most I just put up with the inconvenience but then just before Christmas 2019 it failed and would not reset. I went to the dealer and threw all of my toys out of the cot.... I referred the dealer to all of the the webpages about “200-series CDL flashing”, and invited them to convince me that this wasn’t a manufacturing/design fault. They came to the party and replaced the actuator as an out-of-warranty repair. No problem since.

Mr Toyota knows it is an inherent fault, but won’t admit it openly - in Oz some dealers accept it as an out of warranty repair, some don’t. Given that all of them will be checking with Toyota HQ before making the decision it can only be the case that Toyota is rolling the dice to see if the owner accepts “no” for an answer. In my case I made it clear that I was poised to be the customer that they would do anything for just to get me out of their office. Fortunately the Ok for the repair came back pretty quickly and the full flower of my flawed personality was not required. YMMV, Tony

 

[linuxgod]

the CDL gremlin that you are experiencing occurs in 200’s throughout the world. I am in Australia and it was present in my 2015 model when I bought it in 2017. Occurred infrequently on cold starts, and would go away once the transmission got hot. Like most I just put up with the inconvenience but then just before Christmas 2019 it failed and would not reset. I went to the dealer and threw all of my toys out of the cot.... I referred the dealer to all of the the webpages about “200-series CDL flashing”, and invited them to convince me that this wasn’t a manufacturing/design fault. They came to the party and replaced the actuator as an out-of-warranty repair. No problem since.

Mr Toyota knows it is an inherent fault, but won’t admit it openly - in Oz some dealers accept it as an out of warranty repair, some don’t. Given that all of them will be checking with Toyota HQ before making the decision it can only be the case that Toyota is rolling the dice to see if the owner accepts “no” for an answer. In my case I made it clear that I was poised to be the customer that they would do anything for just to get me out of their office. Fortunately the Ok for the repair came back pretty quickly and the full flower of my flawed personality was not required. YMMV, Tony

Good to hear we're not alone. (Well, not really good, but consistent at least).

I'll be curious to see if your issue returns after a couple years. I'm assuming the replacement part is identical to the original so it likely will, but I'll take whatever anecdotal data I can get on the issue

 

[Tonytbts]

It will be interesting to see if the replacement actuator fails, but I believe (and hope!) that it won’t. There are 200’s all over the place down here and only a small proportion suffer from the “CDL light flashing” disease.
The failures are absolutely consistent but relatively uncommon. As you could guess I spent quite a bit of time trawling the web for posts about the issue, and I haven’t seen a post from someone who has experienced it after an actuator replacement. Maybe Toyota has sorted the problem on the replacement part, or maybe it is exactly the same as the original fit and it is just good luck. Good luck with yours, Tony

 

[grinchy]

I’m a third owner. The rig was in for actuator service based on Lexus service records. I strongly suspect It was replaced. I am now getting the flashing CDL light about 50% of cold starts. I do use the CDL off-road every couple weeks, so it isn’t lack of use.