Check engine- 4LO

I see this is an issue with Toyota. I have a 2018 with just about 20K miles, for the past year the 4 Lo light goes on, I've put it in 4wheel drive. Drive a little take it out and put back into 2wheel. Light may go off. Other times the 4 Lo goes off then the check engine and traction light are on. We took it to Toyota and they told us that if it was something internal they would not cover under warranty. We took it to our local mechanic, he checked the car. Its fine, he resets the code every time. I took it today and 2 minutes down the road the 4 Lo came back on. I saw a few threads for this but could not find it again when I created an account. Any suggestions?

 

My suggestion would be taking truck to different mechanic and ask him read to code. Or buy ODB-II scanner and read the code yourself when check engine light goes off next time. That would be a good start, error code will give some clues as where to look. Doesn't seem t be common issue, probably some sensor need replacement or something electric or mice chewed on electric cables.

 

Thank you.

 

Not sure what the dealer means by “if it’s internal, warranty wont cover”. I guess that’s just another nonsensical statement dealers tend to spout off. If you’re still covered under the 60k 5year warranty, drivetrain should be covered. I imagine you are just outside the warranty period.

Unfortunately, dealers tend to make the problems sound more complicated than they actually are. They’ve been mechanically the same for essentially 24 years now. The 4wd computer is basically a box of mechanical switches. I’d suggest looking for a 4x4 shop that works on toyotas (not the ones that have a mall-crawl store attached to them, but see if you can find one that does mostly repairs or builds.

If you’re planning on working on it yourself, there are probably a few on this forum that might be able to help with figuring out what’s going on, but you’d have to give more specific details about your issues.

 

So the 4Lo light is coming on when in 2wd?

 

yes

 

Had a very similar issue with my Sequoia. Went away on its own. In my case it was either the neutral safety switch or the fact that the wife never exercised the 4x4, especially 4Lo. 4H still works but 4L does not.

 

Been making sure to put in 4WD and 4Lo. The mechanic recommended. Hopefully I'll have the same result. Thanks.

 

This happened to me over the summer. It's hard to diagnose because it was happening intermittently, but when the engine light came on I hooked up a code reader, which return P705, which indicated an issue with the Neutral Safety Switch. I brought it into a local mechanic, and the light went off, so he wasn't able to confirm the code. However a different mechanic at the same shop drove it and the light came on. But it remained off whenever the other guy drove it, very odd. Anyway it wasn't very expensive it fix, but I don't know the exact cost.

 

Did you notice that it was harder to put it in gear? I know when the light is going to come on because the shifter is really tight when I put it into reverse or drive.
I'll look into safety switch saw that on another search. Thanks for that info.

 

Sounds like you’re on the right track suspecting the neutral safety switch. Vehicles located in the rust belt seem to have more of a problem with this.

 

Yeah. It was odd and hard to describe, but it seemed like it was tighter, or at least there was more resistance when shifting.