Fog lights come on by themselves

[jwlgrnmo]

My thanks to this incredible forum! The foglights on my 2008 mysteriously came on this week and drained the battery. I was bracing myself for a potentially long and expensive process of trial and error. But the info in this forum helped me get to the root cause right away. A clogged sunroof drain caused water to be diverted down the driver's side A pillar and caused corrosion in some of the electrical junction boxes. Note the blue goo in the pictures below. Everything is fixed now.

I hope these photos help somebody else down the line.

Thanks for the photos! I am now dealign with this. What did you use to clean out all the water intrusion on the harness plugs?

I dried it all up, vacuumed it all, wiped it down and unclogged my drains. Works as it should but a few hours later my alarm kept getting triggered. I am thinking there is another plug still wet somewhere so I have to unplug more things, dry and clean them.

 

[TailGator]

Not sure. My mechanic did the repair. I think he replaced the parts.

 

[bloc]

Thanks for the photos! I am now dealign with this. What did you use to clean out all the water intrusion on the harness plugs?

I dried it all up, vacuumed it all, wiped it down and unclogged my drains. Works as it should but a few hours later my alarm kept getting triggered. I am thinking there is another plug still wet somewhere so I have to unplug more things, dry and clean them.

If they were submerged long enough some of the pins inside the connector may have corroded. Common issue.

You’ll need to open the connectors and look for evidence of that.. usually a green color, and possible missing/damaged pins. Beware, many of them are very small. Some people with this issue have to install wires to bypass the damaged pins in the connectors.

 

[jwlgrnmo]

If they were submerged long enough some of the pins inside the connector may have corroded. Common issue.

You’ll need to open the connectors and look for evidence of that.. usually a green color, and possible missing/damaged pins. Beware, many of them are very small. Some people with this issue have to install wires to bypass the damaged pins in the connectors.

Welp this is exactly what happened. As I pulled off the connectors I saw some broken pins. Can these be re-pinned? If not I’ll just insta bypass wires.

Happen to know how to remove the car side of the harness?

Thanks,

 

[bloc]

Welp this is exactly what happened. As I pulled off the connectors I saw some broken pins. Can these be re-pinned? If not I’ll just insta bypass wires.

Happen to know how to remove the car side of the harness?

Thanks,

I have done a lot of Toyota wiring but not messed with those specific connectors, so I can’t help with removal there. Pretty sure trying to re-pin is more trouble than it’s worth.. just finding the part numbers for such small pins out of the dozens available will be a task in itself. Then you’re looking at special tooling to install them, as the standard butt-splice crimp tools aren’t sized or formatted correctly for this.

If you spend some time searching in this section you’ll find plenty of people that have accessed and rehabbed the area though. I’m sure there is good info sprinkled around in those posts and threads. Key words would be sunroof leak, water in footwells, etc.

One specific tidbit.. if any of the impacted wires are in twisted pairs, those are for the vehicle-wide communication network. They need to stay twisted as much as possible.

 

[jwlgrnmo]

I have done a lot of Toyota wiring but not messed with those specific connectors, so I can’t help with removal there. Pretty sure trying to re-pin is more trouble than it’s worth.. just finding the part numbers for such small pins out of the dozens available will be a task in itself. Then you’re looking at special tooling to install them, as the standard butt-splice crimp tools aren’t sized or formatted correctly for this.

If you spend some time searching in this section you’ll find plenty of people that have accessed and rehabbed the area though. I’m sure there is good info sprinkled around in those posts and threads. Key words would be sunroof leak, water in footwells, etc.

One specific tidbit.. if any of the impacted wires are in twisted pairs, those are for the vehicle-wide communication network. They need to stay twisted as much as possible.

Thanks! this gives me hope. I will try to attempt this if it doesnt seem to daunting. it is just in a really tights space.

Worst case I will try and find a used harness to retrieve the 3 I need or take it to an audio shop to see if they are worthy of tackling the bypass wiring.

What a pain. Lesson learned to check my drains and windshield when winter rolls around. Especially here in the PNW where we have 6 months of rain. I am hoping I can get every thing back to normal. So far sterio audio wont turn on, no heater or ability to divert the air position, no reverse cam, parking sensors.

From what I remember only 2 pins snapped but who knows how many did while plugging the pigtails back in and screwing them down.