Camry :: 03 - Dash And Dome Lights Began Flickering At Start Up

I have a 2003 Camry V6 LE.

Yesterday the headlights did not turn off automatically when the car was locked up after being driven for about 30 minutes. Unfortunately, this was not detected until about 8 hours later.

The door locks would not function with the remote and the doors were manually unlocked.

When I got in the car and tried to start the car the dash and dome lights began blinking/flickering, the CD player ejected the CD, and the security light was blinking as it would if the doors were still locked.

The battery was too low to start the car so I jumped the car to start it and got home.

Battery showed 12.7 volts cold the next morning before the car was started. While running there was about 14.3 volts across the battery terminals which would seem to say the charging system is OK. Battery is just under 3 years old.

Doing some testing, I found that the headlights would turn on with the multifunction switch without the car running. In this case they would not turn off through locking the doors even after double clicking the lock button on the remote. The only way to turn them off in this case was through the multifunction switch.

Other testing shows that if the lights were turned on with the car running, they would turn off automatically within about 30 seconds or so when the car was shut off and the doors locked. In another similar test with the engine running and then shut down I also tried the double click lock using the remote and this also turned the lights off immediately.

Based on research on TN site, one recommendation for a similar, but not identical, problem was to replace the multifunction switch. No one suggests replacing the headlight relay or any of the 4 DRL relays.