SolaraGuy.com

Hello! I recently inherited a 2007 Solara Convertible SLE (only 6K miles!) and have been driving it to/from work for the past few days. This morning, after unlocking the car with the alarm fob and lowering the top, I attempted to re-secure the vehicle with the key fob and was unable to have the car respond -- no lights, beeps, etc. I attempted to pop the trunk with the fob and also no luck. Since the car hadn't been driven much the last few years, I surmised that maybe the one remote needed a battery replacement and retrieved my secondary remote -- alas, it also failed to work. Since the car was new, I wasn't certain if arming the remote was disabled by design with the top down and drove to work as planned -- not believing that two remotes would fail simultaneously. When arriving at work, I closed the top and attempted to re-enable the alarm but no luck again.

In addition to this behavior, I noticed that the dash clock was not retaining its setting while driving into work and the MPG gauge seemed to fluctuate wildly while driving (5mpg-->99.9mpg). Other than the flaky alarm performance today, and the clock/mpg gauge behavior, all other functions on the car seem normal. My parent had a new battery installed in February 2011 but otherwise have nothing further to report in terms of odd behavior. I'd appreciate any suggestions on how I might pursue further diagnosis on this issue since I'm without a service warranty through Toyota given the age (not mileage!). Thanks much!

Don't know much about the lock/unlock problem for I don't have a vert. However, I think you should know that there are two mpg displays--one is average miles per gallon (very slowly fluctuates) and one is current miles per gallon (wildly fluctuates) which is what I think you're seeing.

Thanks for the details on the MPG reading -- that explanation does help! Also, after further checking of the car, I was able to trace back the failure to a burnt fuse for the DOME1 circuit. Apparently the alarm, the dome light, the clock and even the Homelink are all interlinked within the same circuit. The Homelink failure had been the "smoking gun" as a technical troubleshooting guide I found for that device identified which circuit was affected -- which later allowed me to backtrack to the other devices as well.

Nutshell -- issue resolved with a micro clip fuse 7.5A from Pep Boys!

Gotta love that. Glad it was simple. Warning, when you lock up with the top down, if you open the door the alarm will fire. Nice feature, but you don't really think about it until the first time you piss your pants trying to unlock the car by reaching inside.
I normally keep the gauge on avg mpg or range.