O3 Tundra battery problem

It's an '03??? Hell...get to the dealer, say "Gimme a loaner and fix this damned thing". :-)

As a Tacoma 2003 owner you learn the hard way what Toyota warrenty means ->

nothing! You take it to the shop and they tell you: "cannot duplicate problem". When you call Toyota, they tell you: "Sue us!"

That hasn't been my experience thus far with my local dealer. Remember that you're dealing with a locally owned business, not Toyota directly. If they don't treat you right, call Toyota, bitch like crazy, and mention the phrase "attorney general's office".

Tried that, been through arbitration, and I am currently working on litigation. I have worked with two dealers and Toyota USA. The dealer makes more effort than Toyota. Toyota pretty much tell its customers to sue or they wont talk to you...

That's friggin ridiculous. Have they done even the most basic stuff, like wander around the vehicle, clipping an ammeter onto various wire harnesses? Have they replaced the battery???

The refuse to lift the hood unless they can "duplicate the problem" Thats the Toyota Lemon Law defense strategy

Take It to the dealer. Why worry yourself about It ? 36mo or 36000 miles.

Is there only one dealer in your area? And, have you had any aftermarket electrical devices installed, even something as typically benign as a radio?

If this was their true strategy, Toyota would be out of business. Maybe there is more to the story than you are saying. It is not expensive to let a truck sit a few days for them to realize that they can't turn it on again.

I had a GM car (Cadillac cts) that would do something else, it would have a burning smell after 1-2 hours of driving. The dealer did not want to waste his mechanic's time to drive around to reproduce the problem. I just traded it in for a Lexus.

Do you have a after Market Alarm? Do you have any After Market Amps? Or you could just have a bad battery?

If you bridge out the battery with a 12V light tester you can see if you have a Drain occuring! C

At Advance Auto Parts yesterday, they looked at a customer's car, into which they'd just installed a new battery two days earlier. Clerk: "Well, sometimes we just get a bad one. Handed the guy a voucher for free coffee next door, and they went right out to his car and replaced the batter".

If the Toyota dealer refuses to try this, something's seriously wrong, either with the dealer, or with this entire story.

Well, maybe becasue 99.99% of the time the battery is just fine. Counter guys can toss parts to make somethign go away, but if its not really fixed, who are they helping? Reminds me of a time at Home Depot, a lady couldnt figure out how to add line to her gas line trimmer. Salesperson just gave her a whole new line trimmer, brand new in the box. Now sure, it worked fine, now what happens when it runs out of line? And who pays for the perfectly good returned item? Right, consumers. We actually do a real battery test, it must actually come up as failed, then we press a key to get a code to warranty it. If we dont submit a claim with a warranty code, we dont get reimbursed for the battery. In other words, we can only replace batterys that are actually bad.

I agree - this practice can result in waste, not to mention bankrupt retailers. Remember Lechmere?

But, I used to work in the car audio biz. We always kept one of each size speaker around for diagnostic purposes. Never returned the ones we found to be OK - we should put them right back into the customer's car and continued the diagnosis from there. Anyway...there's still something fishy about the story going on here with this guy's truck. :-)

Yup! I just had the same problem with my '03 Tundra bought last January. Using a clamp-on ammeter, I found that the charging system is operational and that there is no drain (=12.7V while a discharged battery will drop below ~12.0V). In addition the battery voltage drops rapidly under load (ignition key on, engine off). During my 1YR oil change, I will insist that the dealer do a full battery check ... I am betting that the battery will fail this test. If the dealer won't do it, I will pull the battery and ask a autoparts store to test it for me.

Yup! I just had the same problem with my '03 Tundra bought last January. Using a clamp-on ammeter, I found that the charging system is operational and that there is no drain (=12.7V while a discharged battery will drop below ~12.0V). In addition the battery voltage drops rapidly under load (ignition key on, engine off). During my 1YR oil change, I will insist that the dealer do a full battery check ... I am betting that the battery will fail this test. If the dealer won't do it, I will pull the battery and ask a autoparts store to test it for me.