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Location of taillight relay

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Main Forum' started by ita66, Jun 6, 2010.

  1. ita66

    ita66 New Member

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    NE Ohio
    Vehicle:
    2008 Prius
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    Anybody know the location of the taillight relay? My taillights (and all other exterior marker lights) have gone out and the display no longer dims at night. The fuse has no supply voltage. My best guess from the wiring diagram is that the taillight relay is toast. It would seem a simple operation to pull the relay and just check it. The problem is finding it. The repair manual says it is in the fuse/relay box over the drivers side front tire. However there is no relay in that box marked as taillight and all the relays are accounted for from the diagram. The car is an 08.

    So does anybody know where the relay is located?

    Thanks in advance.
     
  2. hobbit

    hobbit Senior Member

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    It's in something called the "integration relay", which is a
    buried assembly of four [I think] relays collected together in
    one box. It's a pretty stupid setup, and probably means the
    whole set of four needs replacing [if it is indeed the bad
    component]. I believe it's the subpanel to the right of the
    large blue, grey, and green relays in this pic,
    semi-subtly labeled "B". If you dig in far enough to free
    it up I'd give a quick harness-continuity check before
    declaring the relay toast, however... outside of extenuating
    circumstances the things are pretty reliable.
    .
    _H*
     
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  3. ita66

    ita66 New Member

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    Vehicle:
    2008 Prius
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    Thanks, I know exactly what you are talking about. I assumed those were blanks for unused circuits. I will check it out (maybe tonight) and write back.
     
  4. ita66

    ita66 New Member

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    Location:
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    Vehicle:
    2008 Prius
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    N/A
    I know it has been a while, but I wanted to update the saga of the broken tail lights. Per the suggestion above, I found the integration relay and it is indeed labeled with a "B". I tried jumping the high current sides of the relay and I got multiple things to activate, but not the tail lights. I jumped from the battery to the light side of the fuse and got all the lights (tail, side, dash, IP) lights to work as intended. So I knew the problem was between the integration relay and the fuse box under the steering column. Not wanting to rip apart the dash and still not convinced the relay was the problem (couldnt get the lights to activate via the relay), we ended up taking it to the dealer. They determined that there was a wiring problem in the junction box under the steering column (I think it is the stuff above the fuse box right there by the driver's knees). Now is where it gets ugly. $600 for a new junction box and $600 worth of labor to find the problem and reinstall a new box. The dealership convinced Toyota to pick up the tab for the box but we still got stuck with $600 for labor. We bitched to the dealership and to Toyota corporate but got no sympathy. This car wasnt even 2 years old when it was at the dealership but had 40k miles so it was out of warranty. The problem has existed for at least 6 months (we always wondered why the IP didnt dim when the headlights came on) so the car only made it 1.5 years before a significant electrical failure. I have owned MANY cars beyond 20 years old and some as old as 330k miles and none had electrical issues on fundamental items. Pretty crappy on Toyota's part for not taking care of the whole problem. And to make matters worse, our Toyota truck at work is a 2007 with 50k miles and has bad rear wheel bearings. I am starting to believe that Toyota's quality level really has slipped.

    And for what it's worth, if you unplug the relays when the car is on, every light on the dash comes on and scares the crap out of you. Cycling the car off then on fixes most lights and disconnecting the starting battery for a while fixes the other lights. We havent had any problems since.