It sounds fine to me! Perhaps it's a regionalism...
It means 'I can't tell you exactly when I'm going to arrive'.
For example, you might tell your parents that you're coming home to visit them for the weekend. You're going to set off after you've finished work tomorrow, but you don't know precisely what time you'll leave - it depends on how busy you are at work. The time your journey takes will depend on the time that you leave and also on how busy the traffic is - if it's rush hour you could be delayed, or you could be lucky and miss the rush hour. In other words, you can't predict when you'll arrive.
So you say to your parents 'Expect me when you see me'. The inference here is just as you say - don't wait for me especially. I'm going to arrive, but I can't tell you when.
In the UK, at least, this is a normal thing to say.