94 wagon taillights dead

[zanglezonker]

I discovered in the middle of the night last night while driving in the fog on I-5, that all four of my taillights were dead.

I checked the fuse and it's fine. I drove the rest of the way home with my hazards on.

Some history: the tail/brake light dash idiot light came on a few weeks ago. My daughters helped me identify that the outside driver side taillight wasn't coming on.

I bought new bulbs. When I opened it up to change the bulb, the old bulb looked fine and began to work with some movement in the wiring. It seemed ok, so I closed it back up.

Then the idiot light came back on. It took me a bit to figure out that this time it was the brakelight in the same location. I didn't worry too much since I had 4 other functional brake lights, including one right next to it on the rear hatch. I planned to look at it when I got time.

But then I was driving down I-5 from the Bay Area to LA in intermittent fog and two different vehicles behind me flicked their lights on and off. I pulled off on an exit and found the taillights were completely off (but the brake lights worked fine). Like I mentioned the fuse looks fine and I swapped it with another 15A fuse and still no taillights. I also put a new bulb in the location that had been acting up and tried jiggling the wiring, but no change.

I'm assuming the problem is in the wiring, but can anyone suggest where I start looking for problems? Is it possible for the wiring to one bulb to cause all four to go out (without blowing the fuse)? Or should I be looking at the part of the circuit before it branches off to all four lights?

Thanks...

[toyomoho]

There is a small sensor box wired between the power from the light control and the tail lights. This box is what triggers the dash light. It is possible the box has failed the result being no power is getting to the bulbs.

The box is typically located on the rear drivers side of the car in the area of the antenna box (if you have one).

Find the box and determine if it is receiving electrical power.

[zanglezonker]

I pulled the tail light failure sensor.

The following thread was helpful in finding it on my wagon:
http://www.camryforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5210

The circuit on the sensor was fried exactly like the photo in this thread:
http://www.toyotanation.com/forum/sh....php?p=2846964

My next step is going to be to look for a short in the wires/sockets, starting with the light that was giving me trouble before they all went out.

I'm thinking to replace the 15A fuse for the tail lights with a 10A fuse, which should cover 4x2.1A 1157 bulbs. I'd much rather blow a fuse than blow the sensor again.