How to kill your Highlander battery

[pgoelz]

We were camping last week. The HL was parked next to our popup and I was using it to keep our musical instruments out of the sun. During the day the windows were down, but as evening fell I wanted to roll them up. I was standing on the passenger side when I decided to roll them up so I opened the passenger side door, put the key in, turned the ignition on and rolled up the windows. When I turned the ignition off, the headlights came on (I have 30 second exit delay programmed). However, they did NOT turn off after the 30 second exit delay.... they remained on permanently. This is because the vehicle was apparently waiting for me to exit the driver side door. Since I had entered and exited from the passenger side, it simply left them on. As soon as I went around and opened and closed the driver door, they cycled off normally.

The fact that the headlights are on is fairly obvious at night but not during the day. You could easily walk away from the vehicle and not notice the lights were on after cycling the ignition from the passenger side.

I did not wait 10-20 minutes to see if the headlights turn off after a longer period of inactivity. Anyone know if they do?

Paul

[jgayman]

Interesting... I will have to try that on my '11 SE.

I killed my battery by turning on the dome light and getting out of the car. Because of the headlight timer I was used to walking away from the car while the lights were still on, something I would have never done on my '01 Limited.

When I go in for my first oil change I am going to have them set the headlight timer to ZERO. That way I can go back to the policy of walking away from a vehicle while the lights are still on - being bad.

I quickly grew tired of everyone telling me my lights are on when I park.

[CPSDarren]

Another way: On my 2011 hybrid base, the front interior light "off" position does not override the rear map lights, as it does in various other minivans and SUVs I've driven. If you have kids or frequent riders in back, don't assume you will turn off all the reading lights in back with the switch on the roof!

[pgoelz]

I came to the 2011 HL from a 2001 Buick Rendezvous and I also work with people who write software for automotive body controllers (but not Toyota). I have to say I am shocked at how "behind the times" the Highlander feature set is compared to the several US brands I am intimately familiar with. My Buick (2001, remember) was FULLY customizable by the user and had a "battery saver" feature which turned off the feed to the interior lights and accessories 10 minutes after the ignition was switched off. If you took the key out it was impossible to run the battery down regardless of what you left on unless you turned the ignition back on every 10 minutes for a day or two. Where the HL will protest and refuse to lock the doors if you use the fob and a door is open, the Buick would beep and then lock 30 seconds after the last door closed. Since I have the HL fob lock confirmation beep turned off, that also turns off the protest so there is no obvious sign that the doors didn't lock if I miss the fact that the locks didn't "clunk" when I hit the fob.

The Highlander is a great car but it is puzzling that its feature set is not as complete as others.

Paul

[matt0420]

Originally Posted by pgoelz

I came to the 2011 HL from a 2001 Buick Rendezvous and I also work with people who write software for automotive body controllers (but not Toyota). I have to say I am shocked at how "behind the times" the Highlander feature set is compared to the several US brands I am intimately familiar with. My Buick (2001, remember) was FULLY customizable by the user and had a "battery saver" feature which turned off the feed to the interior lights and accessories 10 minutes after the ignition was switched off. If you took the key out it was impossible to run the battery down regardless of what you left on unless you turned the ignition back on every 10 minutes for a day or two. Where the HL will protest and refuse to lock the doors if you use the fob and a door is open, the Buick would beep and then lock 30 seconds after the last door closed. Since I have the HL fob lock confirmation beep turned off, that also turns off the protest so there is no obvious sign that the doors didn't lock if I miss the fact that the locks didn't "clunk" when I hit the fob.

The Highlander is a great car but it is puzzling that its feature set is not as complete as others.

Paul

You came from an 02 Buick Rendezvous, theres no such thing as an 01 Rendezvous
I remember this because I totally wanted my dad to buy an Aztek in 01, and he nearly did, until he heard the Rendezvous was coming out one year later and bought one of the first ones on a dealer lot.

Haha, it drives me nuts too, because the vehicle I most frequently compare my HL to is my dad's 02 Rendezvous. I would drive it very frequently, and it was insane the amount of programming I could do from my own driveway.

On my dad's key fob, he could program all his radio stations, his driver information settings, his lock/unlock settings, even if he wanted his headlights to flash when he locked to doors.
On the second key fob, the settings could be completely different, and the truck would change over to the other settings once that key fob was used.

I bought the HL, and spent roughly half an hour trying to set different radio presets on the different keyfobs before I realized it wasn't going to happen.

The Rendezvous, and every other GM vehicle made before 1999, would automatically shut off the interior dome lights if they were left on for more than 15-20mins. My HL however, will leave them on till the battery is dead.

Boggles my mind...