Thread: Check Engine Light Toyota Ipsum

Righto guys, the wife's just rung saying an orange light came up on dash. There's more than a couple of Toyota gurus on here that may be able to help. I told her to go straight home and park up. Being orange, I suspect it's only advisory and not terminal at this stage. 2002 Toyota Ipsum.
@cambo

first thing to do. disconnect battery for 10 minutes then reconnect

Cheers. Looks like it double posted during editing.

Borrow an OBD reader off someone and read the code before you clear it. If you were up here I could do it for you. @stretch sourced a cheap one that seems to work pretty well from somewhere

The popular and cheap ($5-10) ELM327 based readers did not work for me on my 2002 Low-self-Estima. After a fair bit googling, it appears Toyota uses some variation of the OBD2 standard, so I bought one of this type (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/For-...847377006.html). It was a bit of a pain to install the pirated software and assocaited USB drivers on my laptop and get it communicating to a) the diagnostic widget and b) the car, but once I did, I was able to read the codes, figure out what they were and fix the problem myself.

If you want to go down the DIY path, search aliexpress for "Toyota Techstream" and/or "mini VCI". Good luck.

Thanks for that. It's due for a service shortly anyway, so I've booked it in. Fella reckoned it sounded like O2 sensor as that is what gives problems with this particular model.
Not happy. Only had it 6 yrs, put 180,000 km on it,and it decided to do this.
Boring, but bulletproof. Only had regular servicing

A little square of black insulation tape will sort that right out.

Gibo suggested the same earlier. I know of a workshop that does that sometimes. Occasionally they get really technical and pull the bulb

Check your engines still there

The old trick for check lights (ABS, airbag etc) used to be to hook up to oil pressure switch, as a lot of people will just start car to do check of warning lights etc, rather than ignition, check, mileage, start. Meh, if you can be bothered doing that, then you should be competent enough to just fix the problem. Unless it's a euro, then just burn the pile of shit.

- Tom, Dave's Minister for Arson and General Hatred of Euro Manufactured Veee-Hickles.

Ha, both times my Estima has had the engine light come on, it's been one of the o2 sensors. Not the sensor element itself, but the heater that ensured it read the o2 correctly while the engine was cold. It ran a bit lean or rich until the engine warmed up, then it became a non-issue. Those o2 sensors weren't cheap here, and even less so if you go through a Toyota dealership. I told them exactly what the issues was, and that I had the engine code etc. They insisted they would need to connect THEIR diagnostic machine ($80) to tell them what I already knew, then upward of $400 incl labour to replace one o2 sensor.

I hung up on them, bought a pair of Denso o2 sensors from China or Japan for $90 delivered, and replaced the crook one myself. Two years later the second one shat out and I had a spare on hand. 10min job.

It's a Toyota right? Open bonnet, check engine is there, close bonnet, job done.... Or if more serious check oil and radiator water then close bonnet, only 3 things kill Toyota's, no oil no water and rust

Originally Posted by 223nut

It's a Toyota right? Open bonnet, check engine is there, close bonnet, job done.... Or if more serious check oil and radiator water then close bonnet, only 3 things kill Toyota's, no oil no water and rust

Not modern ones

Bet its a code for the oxygen sensor

Your local dealer should be able to do a quick scan while you wait. Quick easy job to extract the codes.