From reading a little here on this site this evening I think the answer to my question is Yes. I will call a dealer to ask tomorrow and get the price. I just bought a new 2013 Three this weekend and have been wondering how people deal with multiple key fobs. I have one to get in the company garage, one for my garage at home and now one for the Prius. Seems crazy and I was asking my neighbor who has a Toyota, and he told me that he can program his garage door with buttons on his mirror. I looked at my mirror and sadly there are no buttons on it. Seems my level three doesn't have it. Did I need level four? But I am wondering if the convenience of installing the garage door opener into the car is such a good idea? My wife clips the garage door opener to the sun visor of her car and it drives me crazy. If somebody breaks in to her car, reads the address on the registration and grabs the garage door opener they can simply drive over to our home and steal much more than what's in her car. !!! She should be using a fob. With Homelink it is probably pretty convenient. But can the thief rip the mirror out of the car and use it? And that also brings up another big question. How easy is it for a thief to hotwire a Prius? If the perp can drive the car he can drive it to my house and open the garage door.
Tell me more about your problems. Yes, it is a risk. But thieves typically aren't that smart (stealing the opener and going to the house). Or, conversely, they are smarter than you think (who knows if someone is at the house to call the cops, kids, etc). Typically, break-ins are crimes of opportunity and not pre-meditation. If a thief breaks into your car, it's because there was an opportunity -- something he or she saw in the vehicle that made it worthwhile -- such as a Garmin GPS or other valuable item on the seat. As for Homelink, no they can't steal it, because it takes power from the vehicle. I guess you could hook 12V up to it, but I doubt anyone is going to do that hassle. It may be possible to retrofit Homelink, but as I mentioned, when installing it there needs to be a power source in the headliner to tap into.
Toanswer your question about adding home link.. Yes you can add it.. Search on priuschat.. Multiple people have added these mirrors..
The dealer I bought the car from says it is $950 to put in the Homelink mirror. Too much, so I'll just use the car door opener I have. I'll tuck it away out of sight and hope for the best. The security problem that I am concerned with, that a thief that breaks in to the car can learn the home address from the registration in the glove compartment and with my opener get into my home, could be dealt with by only keeping an image of the registration on my photo library on my iphone. I've read somewhere that that has been become legal somewhere. Not sure if it's the case is California. I guess I need to research that. Or alternatively I could keep the registration also tucked in the spare tire compartment or somewhere. I am a pretty slow and cautious driver and can't remember when I've been pulled over by a traffic cop.
950? Hmm...I bought a 2012 prius 3 last september and got the dealer to throw the mirror in for less than 200 if I recall correctly, I think their "cost" was like 260. Of course when I took it back to get installed they messed up the driver side mirror, by forgetting to connect something back up. When I went back to fix the mirror I asked about programming the reverse beep off and they wanted over 100 just for that. Ended up buying the 20 dollar cable and did that myself.
I wouldn't worry about a thief using the garage door opener to get into your house. Sure they could do it easily but they can get into the house without it just as easily. If someone has your house targeted they are going to get in. period. But I do like the home link feature on my Prius and I wish I had it on my other vehicle as well. If your door opener uses rolling code, I think most of the newer ones do, you may need some directions to program it. I put in new garage doors with new openers last summer and the instructions in the Prius owner's manual as well as those in the garage door opener manual didn't work. I got mine to work with the help of this thread: Homelink won't work-Help! | PriusChat
If a thief wants in ur car or house, they will get in no matter what. U can take all the precautions but in the long run it comes down to this: if a thief wants it bad enough they will get it. As for the home link mirror, yes, it can be added. I did the retro in my gen2
Product Support | Gentex There should be a link there for local suppliers, and any radio/electronics store with installers or auto interior store can handle it. Shouldn't be more than an hour's labor for someone who knows what he is doing. Some posters here have done the install themselves, and include pictures, so search around the forums. You need to get a power source in the driver's side kick panel and run the wire up the "A" pillar IIRC. You may be able to program it for access to your company garage, depending on the type of system they use. Homelink is very helpful when you call in for assistance in programming.
I bought a used Gentex Homelink/auto dim mirror on Ebay for $85 for my 4Runner. 3 wires -- ground, constant power (for Homelink), ignition-on (for auto dim). I suppose you could tap both power wires to ignition-on wires so that the Homelink does not operate without a key.
Does anyone know what size T-Taps I would need for tapping into the wires in the car? I was thinking around 14-18 AWG. Can anyone confirm?
Buy a used one on ebay for about $100-125, then have a local stereo shop install it. It takes about 1 hour or less, and typical hourly rates for stereo shops is about $75. If they've never installed one, be sure to provide them with a wiring diagram or just label each wire you get. You can also find wiring diagrams on PC, search it.
May I suggest a much cheaper solution? I just purchased the base 2013 Plugin. Of course it did not include the Homelink which was included in my 2007 Touring which it replaces (how dumb is that?) I simply bought a very stylish universal transmitter on Ebay for $20. Works like charm and look very nice. Just search for "universal garage door remote". Mine is not Homelink but honestly I only used the Homelink buttons to open my garage. Not turn on lights etc.
