For the past few days i've been having a couple of weird things happen off and on throughout a single trip:

1. Occasional, sometimes constant beep from audio system.
2. Volume change on its own along with that beep.
3. No horn
4. Cant operate most steering buttons but get only a beep noise when i press them.
5. cant switch from nav to audio screen when hitting the button.

At night when these odd occurrences are happening, there are no steering wheel button lights. When everything is normal, the lights are back on also.
I just got the car back from the dealer after having 02 sensor work done and after they did a routine check they said my battery and terminals are bad. Car still starts fine every morning tho but if i sit and listen to the radio for more than 15-20 mins, i cant start the car.

Question! Will a bad battery give these symptoms and still be able to start the car most of the time? Is there something else goin on? Maybe a steering wheel connector/harness loose? For the record, i have a 05 LS430 with 160k miles.

 

Update:

After poking around it seems like a bad connection. When sitting still, when I turn the wheel I can see the buttons light up and go off as rotate it. Sometimes they're on when centered, sometimes off. It seemslike when the problem is happening, it affects some buttons on the dash also. Not sure what connector controls this or if it's another problem.