Resetting the Maintenance Light on Toyotas

I’ve probably said before that, if I were a politician, I’d make it illegal for car manufacturers to have a “Maintenance Required” light that comes on to “remind” you to take your car in for service when nothing’s wrong. I’d do that right after I ended the racket that is contact lenses needing prescriptions re-issued every year.

But if you drive a fairly recent Toyota, it seems that there’s a trick to reset the service monitor. With the ignition on, make sure the odometer is showing your total mileage (not a trip odometer). Turn the key off, push in the odometer reset button, and hold it in while turning the car back on. It should start by showing “—–“, and decrementing until it shows “-,” and then it’ll reset your maintenance reminder as if you’ve just had your car serviced.

I haven’t personally confirmed this (I drive an ’03, which was made before they started their racket), but I saw it mentioned and poked around, finding several other sites that corroborate this method. YMMV (no pun intended!), but I know plenty of people who find the light a major nuisance.

(You know what else is a racket? I decided to change my own oil instead of bringing the car in for its 75,000 mile tuneup, but in the course of figuring out how the heck I have to do it, I’ve seen that the oil filter is right under the exhaust manifold, and getting to that, or draining my oil, apparently requires undoing a billion screws underneath the car to remove the skid plate… And most places recommend jacking up the front of the car so you have enough room. It’s as if they went out of their way to make sure drivers couldn’t easily do maintenance on their own, so that you have to take it in for service. And if your car is newer than mine, they display their maintenance advertisement light to make sure you do.)

Edit: Just found another source suggesting that, for some newer Highlanders, you have to be on Trip A, not the overall odometer, for this to work. And it seems as if you can just turn the car to “Acc” or similar, rather than actually starting the engine.

2 thoughts on “Resetting the Maintenance Light on Toyotas

  1. The skid plate probably serves a purpose, but protecting the oil filter is definitely not it — I’d be able to get it from the top, except that they chose to put the exhaust manifold right on top of it, so that I have to come in from the bottom. And the problem there is that it’s really pretty high up in the engine.

    An oil + oil filter change + tire inflation at the dealer is $25. I’m now thinking that I might as well let them do it, since it’s such a huge hassle; plus, by the time I buy the 7 quarts of oil and a new filter and the tool to change it, I’m probably only saving a few bucks. And I was way off in my thinking — it’s about $350, not $1,000, to have the 75,000 mile maintenance.

    Though there’s something to be said for changing your oil, too. It helps to reassure me that I’m nothing like the guy I saw on the side of the highway today having AAA changing his flat tire while he sat on the guardrail watching. (Although, honestly, I’d do the same thing — why get dirty when you have AAA service?)

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