So yesterday night I installed my oznium.com third brake light with ease. The engine was off throughout the entire process. Once finished, I applied the brake a few times to see how it looked and it looked great. Eventually the brake locked up after a couple presses which I thought was normal.

This morning driving to work, the ABS, VSC, TRAC OFF lights all came on. I arrived at work, turned off the car and turned it back on. When in park, they remained off, but as soon as I started driving, they came back on.

There is NO check engine light so when I tried to run codes with my iPhone, there were no codes to be found. The BRAKE light is also off.

I want to be able to fix this without having to take it to the dealer, what should I do? Was this caused by my excessive pressing of the brake pedal?

**UPDATE** K so I did about three driving trips later today. The first two turned on the lights within 2 minutes of starting the drive. The third trip took a good 10 minutes of driving until the cluster activated. I cannot find any correlation to their occurrences. It is quite weird.

I just disconnected the battery for the rest of the night. I will reconnect in the morning before I leave for work and I will re-update this thread with the findings.

**UPDATE NEXT DAY** After the battery disconnect, driving to work today the cluster came back on unfortunately.

I am also noticing my car is doing some weird engine revving around 40MPH. It seems as though the torque converter is engaging and disengaging with high frequency. It usually occurred while coasting and not depressing the throttle very much. It would go from 2000 to 2200 RPM and sounds and feels like the engine is chugging and sputtering. I don't know if it has anything to do with the cluster.

**UPDATE SAME DAY** So I replaced the third brake light with the stock TBL, and sure enough: NO CLUSTER. Car was OK with the stock. It definitely hates the oznium one. I have researched and I need to add a resistor into "tricking" the car into thinking the stock bulb is being used.

**UPDATE SAME DAY--LATER THAT NIGHT** Well I finally found the problem!!!! I reinstalled ther third brake light from oznium and found something unbelievable. As I was driving, I used my blinker to switch lanes, and as I activate the blinker, IT TURNS THE TORQUE CONVERTER ON AND OFF CAUSING REVS THAT SYNC WITH THE BLINKER!!!!! Also, one other unbelievable thing. When the car is in park and the blinker is on, the shifter engages the shifter lock and unlock synced to the frequency of the blinker!!!

ONE OTHER THING: The cluster will not activate until the blinker is activated. Once the blinker is activated, the cluster turns on and remains on until the car is restarted.

Oznium needs to fix this problem.

What are your thoughts everyone...?

PROBLEM SOLVED So one of the people posting on this thread by the name of Reactor came up with the genius idea that my trailer lights wiring harness might be causing the problem. I do keep them hooked up to my tailights because the tails are unaffected when the harness isnt in use. Sure enough, I unplugged the harness and the oznium TBL worked PERFECTLY!!!! I am quite excited and it looks great! I will be contacting Oznium to notify them of this VERY specific issue.

Thanks for all the help people!!!!

 

Toss the original brake light back in and see?

Make sure your gas cap is tight?

Robert

 

k thanks, its definitely not the gas cap, but I will pop the original back on and see tonight.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but when you mess with electrical components on a car I think you're supposed to disconnect the battery(the negative, I think..) beforehand and reconnect it when you're finished.
Turn your car off, disconnect, let it sit for a few minutes, reconnect, start the car, and drive it a little bit. Hopefully it'll do some sort of ECU/general electrical reset.
Then come back here and report the results.

 

Yeah, I usually do disconnect the battery for major electrical projects but I thought something as minor as a TBL wouldn't need a full batt. disconnect. Plus it was dark when I installed so I needed the dome light. I will definitely try disconnecting and everything to see if that resets it. Thanks for the reply!

 

Oh, alright.. Well, I hope you get this thing figured out.

 

thread updated

 

It blew a fuse.

 

Quite confident indeed, any idea which fuse it might be?



Also, THREAD UPDATED

 

updated again

 

thats messed up, but at least it fixed the problem

 

Attention everyone

read the **update same day--later that night**

unbelievable stuff

 

Good detective work, but I'm not convinced Oznium is at fault here. I suspect your xB has an electrical problem that's exacerbated by the lower resistance in the brake light/turn signal circuit.

It's unlikely Toyota designed its torque converter locking signal to interact with the turn/brake signals, so there's likely a short between the two circuits, made more apparent when the lower resistance third brake light is introduced into the brake circuit.

 

Yes I know, I dont understand how the torque converter could be at all linked to the blinkers. Sentra, do you know of any options for me to fix the issue without going back to the stock third brake light?

 

Hey ajcadoo,

I agree with SentraSE-R. Honestly I've never heard of this issue before with the third brake light. I've heard of it when people change their turn signals to LEDs.

You could fix the symptoms by increasing the amperage draw.

Same thing happens sometimes when people change their turn signals to LED.

I've heard of people painting their stock bulb (so that no light shines through), and then having the stock bulb on that circuit so the amperage draw is high enough.

Or you could use a load resistor, but not sure which one, or how to figure out which one.

- Phil
Owner, Oznium.com

 

Torque converter lockup supposed to disengage when you apply the brakes. That causes slight RPM difference since now there is some normal slip. Still, the engine is not supposed to sputter or chug or whatever.
I have an auto with LED tails and LED 3rd brake light and it didn't affect anything. Can you drive without 3rd light connected just to see what happens? First time i hear about problem related to Oznium brake light.

 

ok thanks phil, I will try the stock bulb AND third brake light. Hopefully that will make the car happier. Once I get that up and running I will report my findings with the turn signal and whatnot.

 

Yeah, when the oznium light is installed, brakes arent applied, and turn signal on: the torque converter engages and disengages to the rhythm of the turn signal. I have to be in forth gear though for it to be noticable. When the brakes are applied AND turn signal on, the symptoms are NON-EXISTENT. I haven't tried driving with NO oznum and NO stock bulb, so that would be quite interesting. I might try that today.

 

Sounds like you have positive voltage from the turn indicator circuit leaking into the brake light circuit. That usually happens through the light bulbs in the tails if one bulb is shared between stop and turn. On xB's though this is not normally the case since we share stop/parking circuit.
Does it matter which side you set your blinkers on?

 

All turn signals cause the problem: Left, right, and Emergency Hazards.

I am researching waht resistor to use and maybe that will help solve the issue, otherwise I will probably connect the stock AND oznium lights together