Hello everyone,

My name is Brandon and I am new to this forum. I am hoping to get some guidance from this forum as I am experiencing some crazy things.

I bought a 2012 Toyota Camry SE from Toyota of Massapequa last month (44,207 miles, 4 cylinder engine, 6-speed automatic) for $12K, under Dealer Limited Warranty. As usual, it came with its own factory remote for lock, unlock, trunk, and panic buttons. The previous owner had a remote start system installed with its own remote. I inspected the vehicle, test drove it, and plugged in my basic scan tool (Ancel AD410). No fault codes and the vehicle ran exceptionally well. I was very happy and satisfied with this purchase, so I am a bit on edge with what I've been going through these past 2-3 weeks. I will attach three videos and a photo to better explain what's been going on.

Sometimes when I start up the car, a bunch of dash lights will go on and off or stay on steady (ABS, BRAKE, Slip Indicator, Power Steering, and Tire Pressure). The gauges would also go nuts, moving up and down, or not moving at all whether if I'm idle, reversing, or driving. I've tried to plug in my scan tool, but it cannot communicate with the ECU. I turn off the car, start it up again, and then everything goes back to normal for a few minutes. Then the ABS, BRAKE, and Slip Indicator lights will flash on and off or it'll be on steady at various times. When I try to use my scan tool this time, it also cannot communicate. During the times that I can start up the car normally, my scan tool can communicate and it does not read any fault codes. Keep in mind that the brakes work just fine (no noises or anything unusual), tire pressure is normal, parking brake is not engaged, and power steering has been fine since the day of purchase. It's hard to tell when exactly this happens which is why I try to record it and capture this in the moment. It started when I had ECO mode on and saw that light flickering on and off unusually, so I turned it off until I noticed the rest of these lights occasionally go on and off. I had the car for a week after purchase and it didn't do any of this.

I had an alarm installed, Viper 5305V 2-way security system, the next day after I purchased the car and it was running just fine. A week later after installation, I brought it back to the vendor to adjust the auto-lock on the alarm system and add airhorns. After that day was when I started experiencing problems. I thought maybe they had done something wrong, so I had them disconnect the Viper system so I can use the factory remote and see if the problem persists. Today, I started the car and I got the same result even with the Viper disconnected from the vehicle. I doubt the airhorns would have caused any of this chaos (but I'm an average Joe who doesn't really know much about cars). Keep in mind that the remote start that came with the car on the day of purchase was also removed when I got the Viper installed, because at first I thought maybe there was interference between the two but that does not seem to be the case.

I noticed under the hood, there was what appeared to be some garbage as if mice were in the car and removed it as soon as possible. I thought maybe that caused the chaotic startup, but now I see it happening again so it could be something bigger than what I thought at first. Any idea of what could cause this or how I can go about fixing this? Could there be a shortage somewhere under the hood? Maybe the battery is bad? A short fuse? I'd appreciate any advice you can give me. Thanks in advance!