2009 Toyota RAV4 Fuse Location For Power Outlets – Vehicle Jump Starter – USB Volt Meter
This blog article is actually three separate stories but all related.
Please be advised that the information I am providing you here worked for the vehicle I currently own. I have come to realize that Toyota, in my opinion, provided me incorrect Owner’s Manual information. Thus, my solution might not work for your model RAV4. It seems to me that every Toyota RAV4 year model sees changes in fuse locations. Be careful! My advice right now is look carefully at the your car fuse container lid to see where the correct fuse is and question what the owner’s manual tells you.
In the year 2020 I inherited my sister’s 2009 RAV4 car due to her passing away. The RAV4 had milage in the low 30,000! It was a great car to drive. But, I encountered a very frustrating problem in 2001. I had to buy a car starting device to get my son’s Toyota 4Runner started so we could donate it to a charity. I purchased a Audew car starter battery.
I had done a lot of research and chose this device. It worked perfectly. It worked perfectly as soon as we discovered a very small switch labeled “BOOST” in the main power plug which we had to press to get maximum power (see image below).
I was so happy with this purchase! After donating the 4Runner I decided that I wanted to keep the Audew Jump Starter charged for future use.
The RAV4 has 2 power outlets. One is inside the flip up storage container between the driver and front passenger seats. It looks like an arm rest but it can be flipped open and inside is a power out connection. The second power connection is on the driver side of the vehicle just inside the rear door. I made the mistake of using a volt ohm meter to find out when the power connectors provided power. My mistake must have been causing a short and I blew the fuse for the user power connections. I then purchased this next device. It shows when power is provided by the connector and the voltage and also supplies two USB output connections.
The Audew, jump starter, also gives you a USB cable for charging it’s own battery but also this cable can charge your cell phone or any other device that can run on USB power. My idea was to keep the Audew in my RAV4 and keep it charged with the power connector near the rear door. I reasoned that you never know when you might come across a person who needs a battery jump start so I wanted my unit to maintain a constant charge. The USB cable that comes with the Audew is a bit short. I do not want his battery sliding around inside my car so I added a much longer cable so the Audew could be placed into a very convenient storage spot.
I already had a much longer cable and used it to place the Audew inside a pocket provided inside my RAV4.
But, I needed to find the blow fuse in my RAV4. Let me tell you that Toyota was absolutely no help! The 2009 Owner’s Manual that came with the car was awful, a piece of crap for solving this problem. Pages that were to show the location of fuses were wrong. I called my local dealership parts office and they were no help. I spend hours on the Internet, plowing through YouTube videos from wonderful people sharing how to solve finding RAV4 fuses but for me every one was in error.
Another problem was the location for the blown fuse panel. It was located on the driver side near the driver door under the instrument panel.
It was awful getting light up into that space. It was simply awful to pull the fuse cover plate off. I had to lay on my back with half my body sticking out the door to work on this panel. It was damned awful to pull and replace any fuse for testing and replacing. I hated this problem.
The solution that worked for me was to remove the fuse cover plate and scan the image on that cover and printed it out. I put copies of the pages into the owner’s manual. I was to discover that this cover plate seemed to be quite accurate. Next, I provide to you the image I scanned for both of us to use (see image below). I found out that a single fuse, number 27, a 15 Amp, PWR OUTLET, had blown. I replaced it and now both power outlet connectors are working. It seems that in later models of RAV4 there seems to be separate fuses for each of these two power output connectors. On my RAV4 one fuse supplies power to both power connectors.
I plugged in the small Jepsen volt meter and it showed power at both power ports. I keep the Jepsen meter inserted into the rear connector all the time so I can quickly confirm that I am charging the Audew Jump Starter. I do have to make sure nothing slides into hitting this meter when driving.
I connected the Audew car starter battery to the rear power connector and using a long USB cable put the battery into a nice storage slot over the rear driver side tire location. Every time I run the car, this battery should be charged.
My view of Toyota cars has diminished as a result of the large number of problems I had solving what should have been a rather easy problem to fix.
What I learned from this experience is the following:
- Before buying any vehicle, check to see how hard it is to replace fuses. Can you easily get to each of the fuse panel locations?
- Check to see how accurately the owner’s manual are written.
Posted April 25, 2021
