What is this? (piggyback wiring on door harness)

Some idiot creased my driver's side door and the insurance is fighting the claim so for the time being I'm throwing on a junkyard door of the same color (hopefully the fading isn't noticable from 10 feet away, but for now it'll still be better than a big nasty rusty crease).

Anyway, I go to unclip the door's wiring harness and I see this abomination piggybacked onto the door harness? I bought the car used and don't think I have any aftermarket accessories, but I'm not sure if this goes to something I don't onow about. Any idea what it is for? Aftermarket alarm maybe?

 

No idea what previous owners did - I've owned it for 4-5 years. I put the new door on without reattaching this afternarket wiring and the windows work, but the auto up/down no longer works and I can no longer roll the window down immediately after turning the car off. So I'll have to reattach it...

 

So I was driving it tonight and dreading the thought of crouching over half the day tomorrow trying to rewire that in when I noticed the driver's window switch blinking:

Blink Blink pause blink blink pause... Reminded me of reading OBD1 toyota codes...

I search the web for "toyota power window switch blinking" and see a thread on priuschat where a Gen2 12v battery change caused the blinking switch. The solution in that thread was to recalibrate the auto switch by turning the car on, lowering the window half way, and then raising the window all the way up and continue holding the switch up for an additional 5 seconds.

That didn't quite work for me so I tried a few different things and found the procedure for the gen 3:

Turn the car on (to "ready" - accessory "on" won't work). lower the window all the way. Raise the window all the way and continue holding for 5 seconds. If it is dark and your lights are on, you'll see it stop blinking. So now my auto up/down works again as well the switch working for ~30 seconds after you turn the car off (or until someone opens a door).

Yay for simple fixes...

 

The driver's side is disconnected now and everything still works. I believe the passenger side probably has one too based on that kick panel never having the factory nut holding it in place.

I looked back over my original carfax and the car's first owner owned it from late 2009 to late 2011. The 2nd owner bought it in 2012 and I bought it from him in 2017.

At the time I was a little surprised he still had a lein on it 5 years into used car ownership - and that the loan payoff being nearly as much as the car was worth. So now I'm thinking maybe he got a title loan at some point and had sketchy credit so the finance company installed one of those GPS devices?

Maybe that's why even a brand new 12V battery will go dead if you park it for 1 month...

 

I couldn't see, but I could sort of feel the wires and I am reasonably sure 3 of them forked off and plugged into this fake diagnostic port looking thing:


It was attached with self-taping screws to the very bottom of the interior panel below the steering column. The blue button is the only user-interface thing on it. "Tested 155/10" makes me think May 15, 2010? Or day 155 of 2010 (June 4th)?

But I'm more motivated to remove it all after seeing some discoloration on the foam on the kick panel:


It looks like a burn mark, but the wires are really greasy and have lots of gooey electrical tape residue. So it might not be a burn, but it doesn't reassure me...

 

Did you have to splice anything to allow you to start the car or were you able to just remove the piggybacked clips and have the car function normally?

I was reading on an Accord forum where if you just removed it the starter button wouldn't work until you made a splice...

 

Unscrewing the ground wire caused the horn to go off so that was fun for the neighborhood...

 

Mine didn't have the larger box, but there was an empty plug in the medium-sized box (the box with the blue plastic screw to adjust sensitivity) so maybe you got the other part if you agreed to buy the alarm:


I did not have to cut or splice anything, just removing the wires worked although the connector with the red/white wires at the bottom of the picture liked to set the horn off if it jostled until I completely removed the ground wire.


Unfortunately, I now have a check hybrid system light. I did forget to plug in this factory white wire connector when I first started the car so I don't know if that might have tripped it:



The hybrid battery has sort of been acting like it does shortly before going bad though. For instance when I went to move the car into the garage (before removing the rest of the alarm) I attempted to use EV mode and the prius rejected my request. This despite 6/8 pips on the factory SOC gauge, 55% SOC on the scan gauge, and a pleasant ~75 degree temperature.

The scangauge shows no codes, but I only scanned after I plugged that connector back in and replaced the power mirror/dimmer switch panel. I'll try unplugging the 12v battery for a while and seeing if that resets it.

 

The check hybrid message was from that white plug - I didn't even disconnect the battery, it cleared on its own after 3 short drives.

Unlike when the battery went bad, it only had one orange warning light. It also would drive like normal and shut off the ICE at stoplights...

I still ordered an OBD2 dongle to use the dr. prius app going forward though