98 led taillights gone crazy

Black798

Black798

New member
Alight everyone, Im not really sure what to do about this issue. A few weeks ago I installed some led bulbs in the front blinkers of my 98 and replaced the flasher to stop the hyper flash. I then went and installed some new led taillight assemblies from ebay. Everything was plug and play and appeared to work properly. That was before I went and took it for a drive. Now when im driving with cruise control on and hit the blinker it cancels the cruise. I also noticed that with the left blinker on the third brake light flashes as well. If anyone knows of a solution to this could you please let me know.
 
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That's not a problem that's a feature! Do you usually make turns with the cruise on?

The easiest solution isn't the one you want to hear about I'm afraid...
 
No the cruise is canceling when Im on the highway. I never had that issue before then. And if Im on the highway and not using cruise control when I hit the blinker the transmission comes out of overdrive. Sorry if that wasnt clear. The cruise is only canceling when changing lanes on the highway and when Im in town stopped the third brake light starts blinking.
 
Black798 said:
Alight everyone, Im not really sure what to do about this issue. A few weeks ago I installed some led bulbs in the front blinkers of my 98 and replaced the flasher to stop the hyper flash. I then went and installed some new led taillight assemblies from ebay. Everything was plug and play and appeared to work properly. That was before I went and took it for a drive. Now when im driving with cruise control on and hit the blinker it cancels the cruise. I also noticed that with the left blinker on the third brake light flashes as well. If anyone knows of a solution to this could you please let me know.
Click to expand...

A few years ago I replaced my two main brake light bulbs with LED (left 3rd brake light and blinkers stock). All was kosher for about a year, and then I started having the same cruise control issue that you mentioned, and eventually my ABS light started coming on the first time I hit either blinker. As soon as I replaced the brake LEDs with regular bulbs, those issues went away and haven't come back.
 
I tried LEDs bulbs in my tailights and it did the same thing. Cruise would cancel on the highway. Mine also would get an ABS light that would come on anytime the lights were on.

Swapped the bulbs back to regular halogens and everything was back to normal. These trucks don't like LEDs in the tail/brake lights unless you're going to run load resistors to bring the resistance down to what the normal bulb is.

To me, the whole point was to reduce electrical load, so I just gave up on it.

I have an LED in the 3rd brake light and reverse lights, and those are ok.
 
jeremyc74 said:
I tried LEDs bulbs in my tailights and it did the same thing. Cruise would cancel on the highway. Mine also would get an ABS light that would come on anytime the lights were on.

Swapped the bulbs back to regular halogens and everything was back to normal. These trucks don't like LEDs in the tail/brake lights unless you're going to run load resistors to bring the resistance down to what the normal bulb is.

To me, the whole point was to reduce electrical load, so I just gave up on it.

I have an LED in the 3rd brake light and reverse lights, and those are ok.
Click to expand...

I think I will be checking the wiring and make sure everything is right there and if that doesn't solve my issue I will have to pick up some load resistors.
I do have a suspicion that the resistance is the issue because if I put just one stock housing in The issues go away. And just to make sure everyone know the lights im talking about they are these ones. 96 00 Toyota 4Runner SR5 Base Limited Black LED Tail Lights Lamps 1 Pair | eBay
 
Ok so i had some time to look at what might be the issue. All of the wiring on the lights check out. So after digging around some more i thought the trailer wiring might be the issue. So i disconnected the side with the issue from the trailer harness. This solved the issue on the driver side but made it move to the passenger side. So i disconnect the trailer wiring entirely and now there is no issue at all. So now Im at a loss. How do I keep the trailer wiring without it back feeding into the truck and causing issues.
 
Is the harness corroded? Someone once told me of corrosion at the harness eventually working it's way up the wiring and wrecking things in a similar fashion.
Possibly tracing that corrosion up and replacing some of the wiring and harness would work if that's the case.
 
Black798 said:
Ok so i had some time to look at what might be the issue. All of the wiring on the lights check out. So after digging around some more i thought the trailer wiring might be the issue. So i disconnected the side with the issue from the trailer harness. This solved the issue on the driver side but made it move to the passenger side. So i disconnect the trailer wiring entirely and now there is no issue at all. So now Im at a loss. How do I keep the trailer wiring without it back feeding into the truck and causing issues.
Click to expand...

That doesn't make much sense because if there's no trailer connected those wires should just dead end at the plug.

I'm puzzled. I'm headed to VA now and will have my truck back home after the holiday. I have the trailer wiring installed also, and I'm going to dig into this again. There HAS to be some reasonable explanation for this. Maybe moisture trapped in the plug is letting it feed back through the turn signal circuit? :confused:
 
I dont think that it has anything to do with corrosion or moisture. I had some issues with the trailer wiring earlier in the year but that was solved just by cleaning the plug. The reason I dont think it has anything to do with the moisture is because if I put just one oem tail light assembly in then there arent any issues.
 
The only luck I have had with LED bulbs is in the reverse lights. I tried some LED's for the blinker and brakes and had nothing but issues. When I would step on the brake pedal, all the lights on the truck would come on. That ended up blowing the fuse for my instrumentation lights. The LED's in the back up lights work awesome and the interior LED lighting does as well. I ended up returning the brake LED bulbs and went back to the normal bulbs.
 
I can't be the only one reading this and thinking, "the solution is so simple, yet refuses to be done." Can I?
 
BamaDrewski said:
The only luck I have had with LED bulbs is in the reverse lights. I tried some LED's for the blinker and brakes and had nothing but issues. When I would step on the brake pedal, all the lights on the truck would come on. That ended up blowing the fuse for my instrumentation lights. The LED's in the back up lights work awesome and the interior LED lighting does as well. I ended up returning the brake LED bulbs and went back to the normal bulbs.
Click to expand...

It's the lack of resistance inherent with LED bulbs. They were causing either an open ground,or short circuit and backfeeding voltage to the various circuits they were tied into (ABS,cruise,etc). For illumination (parking/turn signals,interior lights) they won't cause a short,but you'll get fast blinking because the flasher relay needs a certain resistance to flash normally (purposely designed to "hyperflash" to alert drivers that they have a signal bulb failure) but that can be fixed with resistors or a LED type relay.

Black798 said:
Ok so i had some time to look at what might be the issue. All of the wiring on the lights check out. So after digging around some more i thought the trailer wiring might be the issue. So i disconnected the side with the issue from the trailer harness. This solved the issue on the driver side but made it move to the passenger side. So i disconnect the trailer wiring entirely and now there is no issue at all. So now Im at a loss. How do I keep the trailer wiring without it back feeding into the truck and causing issues.
Click to expand...

Was this with the LED tails or originals? I'm looking at 00-02 diagrams but the older ones should be similar. If your problems still exist with the stock tails there's an issue with the trailer converter since it ties into both turn and stop light circuits at both power and ground ends. If it happens with just the LEDs, it's the LEDs (see above).
 
Last edited:
Ed_C said:
It's the lack of resistance inherent with LED bulbs. They were causing either an open ground,or short circuit and backfeeding voltage to the various circuits they were tied into (ABS,cruise,etc). For illumination (parking/turn signals,interior lights) they won't cause a short,but you'll get fast blinking because the flasher relay needs a certain resistance to flash normally (purposely designed to "hyperflash" to alert drivers that they have a signal bulb failure) but that can be fixed with resistors or a LED type relay.



Was this with the LED tails or originals? I'm looking at 00-02 diagrams but the older ones should be similar. If your problems still exist with the stock tails there's an issue with the trailer converter since it ties into both turn and stop light circuits at both power and ground ends. If it happens with just the LEDs, it's the LEDs (see above).
Click to expand...

Ok I got it solved. I decided to remove the led bulb in the 3rd brake light and replace it with a regular bulb. This fixed both the abs light and the crazy signal issue from the trailer wiring. So in order to put my led back into the 3rd brake i have a resistor on order that will fix the problem. So hopefully this thread will help anyone else that out there having this issue.

this is the resistor i ordered.
https://www.superbrightleds.com/mor...-led-light-hyperflashing-warning-fix/191/832/
 
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