Kzj95r Prado Tx -- Centre Diff Light Flashes At Same Place On Highway

June 20, 2015

Hello folks,

New to the forum. West coast of Oz 450km north of Perth. Some great topics and some very thoughtful and well-delivered responses on this site. Great to see such camaraderie amongst the clan!

This is about the weirdest thing I've seen on my Prado, which has otherwise been as predictable as a Swiss watch -- A few weeks ago I was driving home from work in the dark along an unlit section of highway (we have quite a few of those in this part of the world). On the highway, bitumen surface, smooth as, no bumps, travelling at about 100km/hr. I noticed a very quick flash from the dashboard display but it didn't last long enough to identify where it came from. I didn't really give it much thought. Well, the next day, it happened again -- at the same location along the road, so when I got home I looked at the dash display to see where it came from. Somewhere in the vicinity of the traction indicators/diff lock light. You guessed, next day, same thing again. By now I'm paying attention, watching for it. Sure enough, next time, I've positively identified it as the centre diff lock light. (see attached photo) Only for a very brief moment. like 1/10 of a second. And it continues to do it every day along the same stretch of road -- and nowhere else.

To make matters even more interesting, there is another road that runs parallel to this road (the old road before the highway was built) about 500m directly to the west. Last night I took that road home instead of the highway. To my great surprise, the light flashed there as well -- at a point on the road that would be directly west of the other place on the highway, as I'm travelling south to north. The trip home is about 15km so rather bizarre that there seems to be something that's triggering it to go off that's lattitude-related! Got me stumped!

I've no idea what tells the light to come on other than some electrical contact that occurs when you engage the Diff Lock switch which then lights up the orange light on the dash to remind you that you have the vehicle in Diff Lock.

Anyone have any wild speculation for what could be causing this? I don't notice any changes in the way the vehicle is behaving when it occurs -- it appears to be just the light flashing.

Would be really curious to hear anyone's insights who may have knowledge of how that light is triggered.

Cheers folks.

February 8, 2022

On 6/20/2015 at 3:40 PM, WayOutWest said:

Hello folks,

New to the forum. West coast of Oz 450km north of Perth. Some great topics and some very thoughtful and well-delivered responses on this site. Great to see such camaraderie amongst the clan!

This is about the weirdest thing I've seen on my Prado, which has otherwise been as predictable as a Swiss watch -- A few weeks ago I was driving home from work in the dark along an unlit section of highway (we have quite a few of those in this part of the world). On the highway, bitumen surface, smooth as, no bumps, travelling at about 100km/hr. I noticed a very quick flash from the dashboard display but it didn't last long enough to identify where it came from. I didn't really give it much thought. Well, the next day, it happened again -- at the same location along the road, so when I got home I looked at the dash display to see where it came from. Somewhere in the vicinity of the traction indicators/diff lock light. You guessed, next day, same thing again. By now I'm paying attention, watching for it. Sure enough, next time, I've positively identified it as the centre diff lock light. (see attached photo) Only for a very brief moment. like 1/10 of a second. And it continues to do it every day along the same stretch of road -- and nowhere else.

To make matters even more interesting, there is another road that runs parallel to this road (the old road before the highway was built) about 500m directly to the west. Last night I took that road home instead of the highway. To my great surprise, the light flashed there as well -- at a point on the road that would be directly west of the other place on the highway, as I'm travelling south to north. The trip home is about 15km so rather bizarre that there seems to be something that's triggering it to go off that's lattitude-related! Got me stumped!

I've no idea what tells the light to come on other than some electrical contact that occurs when you engage the Diff Lock switch which then lights up the orange light on the dash to remind you that you have the vehicle in Diff Lock.

Anyone have any wild speculation for what could be causing this? I don't notice any changes in the way the vehicle is behaving when it occurs -- it appears to be just the light flashing.

Would be really curious to hear anyone's insights who may have knowledge of how that light is triggered.

Cheers folks.