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99 Camry with weird electrical problem???

My beloved 99 Camry developed a strange problem on the way home from a long weekend road trip. This car is equipped with the stock AM/FM, cassette, CD player and we had the radio on. We were in a very remote area and the radio station disappeared, so I hit the scan button and it scanned through all the frequencies, finding nothing, but there was a lot of static. I thought that this was odd, as it always found stations before. I never tried the CD or tape player to see what they were doing. Anyway, I just left it on and shortly the station came back on and when I did a scan, there were all kinds of stations. I thought that this was odd that they would all show back up at the same time. Anyway and this is the problem, when I got to the next stop, I turned off the car, opened the doors and kept hearing a hissing noise. I finally determined it was noise coming from the speakers. Now the keys are in my hand and nothing is on!!! So, I turn the car back on and find that the radio doesn't work again. Now I try the CD and tape and hear noises, but it is not music, just some clicking and static. I turn the car off again and the noise reappears in the speakers. I turn the car on yet again, shut the radio off, turn the car back off and the noise is still there in the speakers. Now I am spooked. I just said the heck with it, went about my business and came back to the car about an hour later and opened the door and the noise had stopped. We finished our trip and it never did this again.

My first thought is that the ignition switch is bad. BUT, if the radio is off when I turn the ignition switch off, why the noise over the speakers? Could the switch be bad and bleeding voltage to the radio and even though the radio is off, something internally in the radio is generating this noise? Then, when the car is running and the radio is on but not working correctly, the ignition switch is not suppling the correct voltage, thus the reason no stations and cd/cassette doesn't work. This is my theory anyway. Has anyone else got any theories? Right now I can go out and you would never know anything was wrong with it.

Sorry for the long post, but this has really perplexed me. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Ron

Reply to
Ron Morris
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This is only a wild stab at your puzzling problem, but I'm posting it because two months ago I had a very puzzling electrical problem with a 99 Camry. I found a weak battery one morning (nearly new battery) and then an hour later noticed that the tail lights and rear license plate lights were on - with the lights turned off. After an hour they went off by themselves when I moved the gearshift (auto). No more symptons for a day and then found that all the dash lighting would come on - in broad daylight - when the ventilation fan was moved from off to on (accompanied by a mild "click" from somewhere). Checked and found the tail lights back on again. Toyota scanned and trouble shot for two days before replacing the "integration relay". They had seen similar but apparently not exactly the same electrical problems. Very expensive and they had to order it overnight - about $700 and they did not charge the first time it came in and they spent four hours trying to find it. When they found it they charged. They also replaced the 11 month old top of the line battery because it would not bounce back from the discharges it had received (that puzzles me too). Apparently this integration relay ties together a bunch of electrical systems - and it is not covered by the Toyota Motor Company extended warranty. Good luck.

Reply to
Orv

Ron.

My first suspect would be the radio/cass/cd unit. The radio intermittently lost reception, the cd/cass does not work, and you hear noises coming out of the spekers when the car and the radio are OFF. when you hear noises coming out of the speakers with both the ignition and radio switches OFF, it means the radio(or at least parts of the radio) is still powered up in some fashion, possibly due to an internal short, (the bad ign sw theory would require that the radio switch be bad too) could be that the steady 12v used for tuning/presets memory(and NOT controlled by the ign sw) intermittently shorts, and is powering the radio. You mention that this is a stock toyota radio, but was there ever work done on the radio wiring?(is it the original that came with the car?). Hope this helps JerryR

Reply to
JerryR

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