01LEXPL

iTrader: (10)

Hey guys, heres the deal. This is going to be a ****** to explain

I am in Canada, its freaking cold here at the moment, and has been for a few weeks.

My story begins with the purchase of the car [2001 es300] since it was purchased the lights would give off a very dim barely noticeable pulse when using the windows, pulling up or down.
**think 100% bright, click the window switch, dims to 80% of brightness**

Since the beginning the icon that warns of 'brake light failure' would go on every now and then, the problem is that the lights worked fine!!! wtf? So that got ignored pretty fast for a few years [while checking periodically if it is in fact a bulb that went out]

Anyways, this was always ignored, [the dimming] the car came with a fresh batt. everything was fine, until 2 weeks ago. The 'dimming' got really bad. I was leaving the coffee shop and my buddy runs up and says, 'dude your lights are practically turning on and off' He noticed the tails, and plate lights. **think 100% bright, click the window switch, dims to 40% of brightness and FLICKERING!**

I thought, damn rush home, and see the mechanic in the morning, immediately i diagnosed the problem to be either the 1. battery or 2. the alternator.

great i go to the mechanic and i get a new battery, he says wait 2-3 days it will be charged up with usage from the car itself, and then see what happens.
While there the alternator was checked and it was A+ working fine, it was showing 14A, therefore it must be the battery.

Yesterday, leaving at night i noticed the lights are STILL DOING THIS! ARGH! **not as bad though**

The conclusion i came to, is that when the 'headlights' are set to 'AUTO' at night both the bottom bumper lights come on as well as the top. ONLY when these lights are running the 'brake light failure' light comes on...
SO the alternator is having a hard time supporting, headlights, bumper lights, taillights, and interior lights!? wtf?

Therefore it *must* be my alternator, right?

I know this is a tough one, but PLEASE IF YOU KNOW WHAT IS WRONG LET ME KNOW!!

tia,
Mike

dallison

when i changed my alternator the problem weent away for thee most part. BUT wheen you look at some of the lights you can still see the pulsing. I think the voltage regulator that is attached to the regulator is the culprit

Walnut

If your battery goes bad it can ruin your alternator. And vice-versa. Go to an auto-electric specialist shop...most mechanics are not good with electrics, you will usually waste time and money with them. They replace this, then that, then the other thing, then they say its a bad ground, and wait 3 days, and you go nuts in the process. This happened to my neighbor. It took me 3 minutes to figure out that her underhood light wasn't shutting off, meanwhile she was out like $500 for nothing.

MyfirstES

Wow, I thought I was the only one with this problem, but not exactly like 01LexPl. I noticed one morning when the car was running and the lights and fog lights were all on, the rear lights were pulsating. I thought it was me! It isn't obvious at a distance, but only up close within 1-2 feet. My alternator and battery are fine.

Lexucan

Don't tell me...she went to Cajun Tire first to have the problem looked at.

Walnut

Good guess but no it was some independent shop.

Isn't it Chinese Tire now? Almost everything in there is from China...apparently they even have offices in China now!!

01LEXPL

iTrader: (10)

Okay, so i am bumping this to show results.

Got a new battery as the alternator was fine, tested under 'load' and still showing 13.5~14 amps as it should.

The problems went away, well the hardcore flickering.

If i 'pull up' the windows, it still does faint dim [vs. flicker in the past] so this is normal.

However my current rant is the 'check rear lights' icon keeps coming on, once i have all four front lights 'on' and when i apply the brakes.

So this is the only annoyance left! Anyone got tips/tricks for that?

Like i said, it was battery issue [it was older at age 2002]/

However the icon still comes on when applying the brakes?! Its just annoying and of course i hate seeing something that should not be light up in the first place!

Help me if you can?

mike

Lazy

iTrader: (2)

Check your brake light bulbs. They should turn on but you should have someone check when you brake to see if the bulbs get brighter if not then you need to change the bulb.

01ES300NYC

iTrader: (2)

hey i have actually found the cause to the flickering lights in most 3gen es'....
i have a friend who works for toyota and had him look into the problem...3 days later he tells me.....not only lexus but all 1mz engines from 97-02 have this problem... the problem comes from the ecu. not the alt or battery or bad ground. it seems that both air fuel ratio sensors fire at the same time.(i really don't know what that means, just relaying what i was told)but it seems this causes a slight drain on the charging system which causes the flickering lights...no solution was made by toyota as they saw this as an annoyance and not a real problem...for proof if you remove the afs fuse,not the relay, the flickering will stop completely. this will give you a CEL, you will have to disconnect + battery to reset after you put the fuse back in.....the only real solution seems to be a higher output alternator...100amp min... hope this helped

Ariyanna

Yeah I upgraded my alternator with a Avalon from a 2004 which has 100AMPS vs 80AMPS Stock. Any 2000 to 2004 Avalon Alternator will bolt right on to a Gen 3 no modification needed.

01ES300NYC

iTrader: (2)

Do your lights still flicker?

01ES300NYC

iTrader: (2)

which size bulbs do you have in there? 194's and 2825's will actually cause this! try replacing both bulbs with 168's....

01LEXPL

iTrader: (10)

^^ what do you mean what bulbs? in what? the taillights?


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Thanks for the heds up on the Avalon alternator, i'm gonna pick one of those up in that case. What year of ES300 did you put it on?? Was it an 00-01??

I want to know if it'll be okay on the VVTI 1mz, and not different than the non-vvti equivalent.

Thanks!

01ES300NYC

iTrader: (2)

it drops right in... no mods needed...so does the 01-04 3.0 highlander 100 or 130amp...

01ES300NYC

iTrader: (2)

the lights on the trunk lid... thats what the indicator light is for. if you have 194,2825 or mismatched bulbs the indicator will come on from time to time while you press the brakes. make sure you use 168's also when the bulbs life is almost over ,even though its not out yet the indicator light will still pop up occasionally