Celica Vvt-Li Secondary Air Pump.. Headlights Flicker.. Battery Light

October 17, 2012

hi all,

new to this site, and struggling to find a good site to join for general good infomation regarding my gen 7 VVTLi celica. browsing the site i think ive came across a good bunch of people who know what they are on about!

firstly i bought my gen 7 190bhp model celica a few weeks back and have loved everyminute of it. i struggled to find a decent car since my last GT4 that was highly tuned to over 400horse and since that went bang 2years ago i havnt came to drive a car the same way and got so bored with them within days.

the gen 7 is no way as quick as my gt4, but the whole driving style, handling etc is awesome. really chuckable and when it comes on lift it gives you that little bit more satisfaction ecerytime!

since owning, 2 days went and the EML was on.. vcs was on followed by traction. pulled the code out for secondary air pump, reset it, and 2days later it returned. looking about, and suffering with this problem before on VW's i found the pump fuse blown. stripped the pump down to find some copper residue and just general grime in there i set about cleaning it all out and using electrical spray. the pump spins freely and is noway seized up, so checking eveything else out and all coming back fine, fuses and relays etc i went onto replacing the blown fuse and starting again.. pump powers up fine spins freely and cuts out when it should.

(at this moment i want to tell you that i spoke to the previous owner not impressed as you can imagine and he denys all knowlage of it... lies come to mind but there we have it some of us arnt genuine)

its been nearly 7days and the pump still kicks in first thing in the morning and cuts out as it should, no engine manement lights and car is performing well.

however, only thing i have noticed is that since its been colder recently and darker ill get in, start the key and instantly with it being started ill automatically switch my headlights on, fan on low to the screen and heated rear screen on, (sometimes radio is on too!) and all this happens so quickly i usually beat the secondary airpump turning on, so when the pump turns on, my headlights flicker slightly and ill get a brief flash of the Battery light for a split 1/10th of a second (you have to be so quick else youll miss it!) and that will be it.. until the pumps kicks out and turns off and the same thing will happen again jsut as the pump shuts down.

reading about i cant find anything about this. cant find anyone with any similiar issues? the only thing i have found is someone in a different country not even with the same car, stating there was a recall on this certain brand of vehicle due to the pump kicking in and all the electrics being on there was a revised alternator to overcome this problem.

i dont want to go chucking money at the car willy nilly as i bought this car for that reason, i wanted a car i could jump in, enjoy, thats reliable and hassle free.. but was hoping someone could stand up and say yep i had this problem it was ....

thanks in advance.

simon

November 2, 2012

Had similar symptoms on my mk1 mr2.......

Traced back to a failing/failed Diode regulator pack in the altenator.

This Diode pack (in my experience) is a sealed lump of resin. It's possible to replace just the diode pack (-as i did), but probably easier (and no more expensive) just to replace the altenator as a whole..........