With my car if you plug in an OBDII reader it breaks the traction control settings. TCS and VSC TRAC light comes on. I've confirmed systems do not work like this and it's not just a faulty light mishap. I have to do this paperclip mumbo jumbo sacrifice in the OBDII to get it back on. And then it works again.
I tell the shops this, even factory trained or Toyota techs and they say "Oh, okay, yeah we'll reset that so it doesn't do that to you"
And then I get it back with the lights on or they come in shortly after because all they did was clear the codes, not recalibrate it.
I've read this is caused by OBDII changing systems around when my vehicle is made and it doesn't know how to communicate with the traction control system and then it just throws a tantrum and deletes it. That's the technical term, undoubtedly.
Has anyone else heard about this or is it just me? Cause I feel like it's just me.
The fella that helped me with the flush said he was a mechanic and owned like half a shop or something? But he's not used to working on these kinds of vehicles. He's used to luxury vehicles.
He did show me the pump that was going off all the time. He said a new part would be a couple hundred dollars and it's pretty much plug and play and it's easily reached.
But my thought is that this pump is just in done feedback loop and is not making its own decisions. Something is telling the pump to go off and it's doing that just fine. I suppose there could be a leak internally in the pump and therefore it's not doing its job causing it to be activated again and again and still causing poor performance of the brakes.
I suspect the issue is elsewhere though. I'm not familiar how to diagnose this for sure. Or if there is a way to do this or I'm just supposed to throw parts at it and hope something sticks.
Toyota dealership did tell me a few years ago that I had tons of fluid in my rear differential (I think that's what they said) (they didn't open anything up so I'm not sure how I'd know) and it would be a few thousand to open it up to look for the problem. But all my fluid levels were good so I'm not sure where it came from. I don't remember what fluid they said it was. After conferring with people who know more than I do, the unanimous consensus was that they were doing unnecessary exploration at exorbitant rates to see if they could get some business.
I dunno. Maybe they were right.
That's a lot to start off with.To be clear these current issues predated this incident. I think. You know what. I don't actually have proof of when anything occurred for sure.
I think I went over a giant rock. I'm not really sure what happened tbh. Shop 2 said my skid plate was so mangled I'd need a new one. They said it pushed up into the bay and caused damage to the radiator and other parts so I'd need a new radiator among other things. At a few thousand.
Shop 3 with more relevant experience said there is damage to the skid plate but parts inside seems to be undamaged and they should be okay. They welded back the torn backwards tow point and said they getting a new skid would not fix it because I've got frame damage that basically matches the skid plate so without doing frame repair that would be very costly I'm better off just keeping my skid plate as is.
The ABS/Trac lights coming on with a code reader is a known issue on the 2003. Here is info/the fix process:
As far as the pump, if he was talking about the ABS pump, and it has failed, then it should just not have ABS, but the brakes "should" still function.
Rear diff fluid level can only be so high. It is filled from the top fill hole, and when it is full it pours out of the fill hole. I wouldn't take that too far past this point.
Typically if you have radiator damage, you are going to have a leak. You wouldn't have made this far in your trip if you had a leaking radiator.
I would say the biggest issue that you need addressed is the brakes. That's going to be a hard one to figure out right now online. Someone local to The Springs might be able to help, but we don't have a ton of people on this forum that live down that way. Maybe one of them can chime in.
There is a shop down in The Springs called Toy Tech. They specialize in Toyotas. They get good reviews, but they aren't open until Monday. https://toytechauto.com/