Aron9000

I have to say, this is one of the most annoying features of my Toyota/Lexus cars(1992 SC300, 2004 Tacoma). Pisses me the hell off that the cigarette lighter(or in the 2004 Tacoma, the cigarette lighter and two auxiliary power ports) doesn't work when you switch the ignition to off and take the key out.

Every GM vehicle I've owned, the cigarette lighter works when the car is off and key is out of the ignition. Thus you can lock your car and charge the cell phone. The other day I accidentally locked the keys in my truck, had them in the ignition on accessory to charge my phone, locked the truck by force of habit, forgot the keys were still in the ignition.

Anyways, is there a way to rewire the cigarette lighter in the SC300 to stay on all the time??? I'm thinking I can use your advice here to rewire the one in my Tacoma as well.

RXRodger

iTrader: (2)

It sort of depends on how "professional" or permanent you want the fix to be. You can't just jumper power to it, if so you'll backfeed some stuff you for sure don't want on all the time. One quick and dirty way to do it that wouldn't require cutting wires is pull the fuse for the cig lighter (at your left foot) and run a jumper wire from the outgoing side of a fuse for something that stays hot that you aren't using like the phone fuse. It is 15a just like the cig lighter and I would assume you would not have any use for the phone power. This would still be fused, would stay on all the time, and could be done in 10 min. Is it "permanent" or "professional"? No, but would work as long as you made good contact in the fuse panel on the downstream side both the phone fuse and cig lighter. The trick would be at the phone fuse end since the fuse has to stay in place, the cig lighter fuse would be removed so you don't back feed. I ran into something similar, so be careful determining which side of the fuse is incoming power and which is outgoing. It swaps sides depending on where the feed is, so check both closely.






Edit: I think the phone is in the fuse panel under the hood, but you get the idea.