Wednesday, July 13, 2022

Mini VCI Toyota Techstream 4Runner 2003 Review

Decided I didn't want to wait for the VXDiag tool from China and bought a cheap mini-VCI J2534 cable off obdii365.com. Received that Saturday night. 
https://www.obdii365.com/wholesale/2018-new-mini-vci-cable-for-toyota.html

Installed TechStream v14.20.019 onto the laptop and found some drivers for the mini-vci. Techstream works fine on Windows 10 64 bit since the OS is backwards compatible with most 32 bit programs. The problem was not having all the drivers and such for the mini-vci cable. Windows installed a driver but there was no communication with the trucks ECUs.

Fought this all morning Sunday and finally found the correct information to get everything working. Part of the problem was that i did not install software for the cable yet. They got me the download link I needed for the missing software. Once I had that, I followed the directions that are included, along with some other posts that I found on various forums via google searches. Finally got the cable working and TechStream was able to communicate with the 4runner 2003.

Made changes to the customization settings that are available, like turning off the DRL, setting the remotes to unlock all doors with a single click instead of the double it had been and a few other minor changes that I found I wanted since the options were there. Everything was great until I drove the truck. VSC TRAC and VSC OFF lights were now on solid.

Spent another couple hours fighting this. Finally got it figured out with the help of my friends. Turns out that there is a chance that whenever you connect ANY OBDII type device, including the mini-vci while running TechStream, it will trip a C1336 code. That means that the VSC TRAC system calibration has been undone and needs to be reset. Unfortunately, you can't do the recalibration using TechStream. You either need the fancy Toyota tools to do it or you do it manually using a couple wires and following a few steps that are provided in the repair manual. I used the couple wires method and was able to perform the zero point calibration, turning off the dash lights. All was fixed again.

Toyota TechStream is pretty cool, lets you set various customizations like I pointed out above and also check and verify the health of all the ECUs in the truck. There are several and each one can have it's own issues. I didn't have any codes on any of them, excepting the C1336 which took forever to show up. I had to have the truck running, TechStream hooked up and monitoring things and then move the truck a couple feet forward and back to get the code to finally show up. It will also come in handy for if I ever need to replace the brake master or vacuum booster reservoir thing, I think it's called the accumulator or something. TechStream can bleed vacuum off and reset the zero point calibration for that as well. Basically, it's a must have tool for these ECU laden, newer Toyota vehicles.
Mini VCI Toyota Techstream 4Runner 2003 Review


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