Frustrating issue with the Nav screen/MFD (1 Viewer)

[monkeycruiser]

I’m having an extremely frustrating issue with my nav screen/MFD in my 2014 Land Cruiser. The front nav screen is acting up - frequently rebooting and always dark with the exception of the Toyota logo upon start up. Occasionally, it will show the message: “System Loading. Don’t turn off the power.”

We’ve owned it for the last few years and not a single problem with it. Never rebooted. The problems started a couple of weeks ago when I cleaned out some leaves and pine needles between the bottom of windshield and hood and under hood a day or two before it started acting up. I also disconnected the battery and sprayed the terminals with battery terminal protector.

What works:

-Rear fan button
-auto climate control button
-temp buttons
-off button for climate control. -When I crank the temp buttons down, it does blow cold air so AC works.

What doesn’t work:

-no rear view camera
-no Bluetooth
-map button
-when my iPhone is plugged into the USB, the charging cycles on and off when the display cycles on and off.

My mechanic advises that the power supply to the head unit is the issue; he says that “the boot up and die” issue is textbook power supply issue. I just think it’s too coincidental that it happened right after I cleared out leaves from under the hood/windshield and sprayed battery terminal protector. Maybe I dislodged something? Bad ground? It rained right after I cleaned the leaves out and sprayed the battery terminal but no signs of water intrusion.

Steps I’ve already done to try to fix:

-checked battery health (no date on it, it looks pretty old but it checked out OK)
-unhook battery for a few hours
-Unhook battery and attach positive and negative cables to each other with a jumper wire for 45 minutes
-Held down volume knob for ten seconds to reboot. It reboots but screen still remains dark.
-Checked for water intrusion under passenger side kick panel. Not a hint of moisture.
-replace battery

-tried to trigger the “diagnostic mode” on the screen by turning lights off and on while holding the “info” button. Nothing happened.

Any ideas? What else should I look at?

 

[Sandroad]

I think you need to look harder for water inside. It can also be in the drivers side sill and sometimes up under the passenger dash. I agree the occurrence with your clean out and rain is probably not coincidence. It seems likely to be a corroded or wet connector, maybe related to the power supply connector. When you find the water, dry everything out, fix the leaking cowl or windshield and hope that does it.

 

[monkeycruiser]

Good suggestion, Sandroad. I will do that!

 

[linuxgod]

Double check your battery connections if you unplugged the battery. Low voltage/poor connection will cause really long startup times… I had that with a recently weak battery. If your battery terminals are not super tight that may be your issue in my limited experience. Check the bolt torque. I think some older aftermarket Slee aluminum battery terminals had issues too, so if you have those you might read up on them in that thread

The frequent rebooting does seem to point to a flaky power supply or loose connection. I don’t think leaf cleaning was at fault unless you were spraying water around the cowl. Water intrusion can be nefarious but just cleaning them off by hand wouldn’t do anything

 

[monkeycruiser]

Double check your battery connections if you unplugged the battery. Low voltage/poor connection will cause really long startup times… I had that with a recently weak battery. If your battery terminals are not super tight that may be your issue in my limited experience. Check the bolt torque. I think some older aftermarket Slee aluminum battery terminals had issues too, so if you have those you might read up on them in that thread

The frequent rebooting does seem to point to a flaky power supply or loose connection. I don’t think leaf cleaning was at fault unless you were spraying water around the cowl. Water intrusion can be nefarious but just cleaning them off by hand wouldn’t do anything

Good tip. I will double check that as well. I pulled the leaves out by hand - didn’t spray water.

I took a quick look at the fuse box under the drivers side last night - no signs of water intrusion.

 

[CJF]

My mechanic advises that the power supply to the head unit is the issue; he says that “the boot up and die” issue is textbook power supply issue. I just think it’s too coincidental

So you're not even going to entertain that possibility?

 

[monkeycruiser]

So you're not even going to entertain that possibility?

I’m definitely entertaining the possibility but would like to rule out other causes before I drop $$$ on a replacement. The timing of the failure is just very coincidental - that’s what giving me pause…

 

[08JDMCruiser]

Just a heads up - the JDM unit that I picked up has a similar issue, but the rear and side cameras still work. There was a japanese message showing "reading HDD disk", but now it's just been replaced with the toyota logo then darkness. Not sure if there was any water damage in my car but the battery fully drained while the car was in storage/being shipped. The problem manifested when I jumped it and installed a new battery.

The only common factor for both of us is the disconnected battery I think. There's videos on YT about resetting the navigation with a DVD (I have a HDD so I'm SOL).

Let us know if you figure anything out!